January 20, 2006. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced this week the names of eight applicants whose proposals for oil shale research development and demonstration (RD&D) leases have been judged eligible for continued consideration. The five companies are Chevron Shale Oil Co., EGL Resources Inc., ExxonMobil Corp., Oil-Tech Exploration LLC, and Shell Frontier Oil & Gas. It should be noted that Shell Frontier Oil and Gas submitted three applications which were accepted.
The Department of the Interior Department agency said that the eight proposals were among 20 submitted in response to a June 2005 call for nominations for 160-acre RD&D leases on public land in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. The next step in the evaluation process will be to complete an environmental analysis under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of the eight proposals.
“Each of these proposals shows potential for advancing knowledge of oil shale recovery technology, evidence of economic viability, and adequate means for managing the environmental impact of oil shale development,” said BLM Director Kathleen Clarke. “ NEPA analysis will further ensure that oil shale development on Federal lands is conducted with environmental and economic responsibility.” Clarke emphasized that no RD&D lease will be awarded without certainty that the technology used will operate at environmentally acceptable levels. She added that States and local communities will continue to be an integral part of the evaluation process.
The parcels nominated by Chevron, EGL, Exxon Mobil, and Shell are located on public lands in Colorado. The proposals submitted by Oil-Tech and Oil Shale Exploration, LLC involve parcels in Utah. Each nomination identifies the 160 acres allowed in the call for RD&D proposals, along with an additional contiguous area of 4,960 acres to be reserved for a preferential right to convert to a commercial lease at a future time after additional BLM review.
Six of the proposals involve in-situ (in-place) retorting, which does not permanently modify the land surface. All current methods for processing oil shale require heating the rock to mimic the geologic processes that produced conventional deposits of oil and natural gas. NEPA analysis will help the BLM determine whether current technologies will result in less surface disturbance than earlier methods.
The United States holds significant oil shale resources underlying a total area of 16,000 square miles. This represents the largest known concentration of oil shale in the world and holds an estimated 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil - enough to meet U.S. demand for oil at current levels for 110 years. More than 70 percent of American oil shale is on Federal land, primarily in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming.