Update On The Bureau Of Land Management Solicitation On Nominations Of Parcels To Be Leased For Research And Development

Subject: Re. BLM's solicitation of nomination of parcels to be leased for research and development...,etc published Fed Reg of 6/9/2005

Dear Mr. Edwards,

We have several questions:

1) Are there any 160 acre parcels within the oil shale resource area excluded from the leasing program, and if there are exclusions please identify these parcels and the reason why they are excluded.

2) If there are two or more different applicants nominating thesame parcel, how do you intend to handle the selection of the awardee?

3) Are you contemplating any extensions of time or modification to the June 9th, 2005 Federal Registere announcement.

4) Subsequent to June 9th, 2005, Congress passed and the President signed the Energy Act of 2005. Under Section 369 entitled the "Oil Shale, Tar Sands and Other Strategic Unconventional Fuels Act of 2005". In its Declaration of Policy - Congress Declares- that it is the policy of the United States - (1) United States Tar Sands, Oil Shale and other unconventional fuels are strategically important domestic resources that should be developed to reduce the growing dependence of the United States on Politically and economically unstable sources of foreign oil imports" (and it continues)... The Act places the responsibility for managing the development of the resourse on DOI and BLM. You can read the act at http://www.shaleoilinfo.org/library/government/congress_2005Jul27.pdf

a) How do your agency plan to protect the access to the resource without interference of the gas drilling interest? Are you contemplating mandating directional drilling and perhaps a limit of 2 (two) pads per section, so that all options are available to the commercial developers of the oil shale resourse, that is: strip mining, underground mining and in-situ without the risk of accidents?

I would like to quote the pertinent part of my observations that I elevated in writing after travelling through the region in early April 2005.

Quote

In my travels through the Colorado Utah oil shale region I could not help but notice, what seemed to me confusing energy policy, as I noticed extensive gas drilling through the oil shale resource. As the natural gas reserve lies thousands of feet bellow the oil shale resource, it appeared to me that somehow policymaking had placed this important LIQUID FUEL RESERVE behind natural gas, in the list of energy national priorities. I place the solution of our LIQUID FUEL CRISIS as the HIGHEST national energy priority. After all, our magnificent transportation system depends on liquid fuels, almost all on petroleum based fuels.

Unquote

We, at Shale Oil Information Center, look forward to your reply.

Sincerely Yours,

Juan A. Granados, President
Shale Oil Information Center, Inc.
9451 SW 97 Street
Miami, FL 33176
Ph. 305 270 8779; fax. 305 595 1883; Email. granados@shaleoilinfo.org
Web. http://www.shaleoilinfo.org

1. We only have 1 nomination submitted so far,..............Shell. So we don't know where anyone else is planning to file a nomination. No nominations will be accepted in multimineral areas (sodium/oil shale).

2. We are working on an acreage conflict policy. We've send options to the Sec. of Interior and she's contemplating them right now. Cannot tell you what the option(s) are until she picks one, or more.

3. No extensions to the Sep07, 2005 deadline will be granted.

4a. Oil Shale R&D leases have no special rights in time. Anyone filing a nomination will have to work with the existing O/G lessees to resolve resource recovery issues. BLM policy is to try and work things out to where we can recover all minerals in conflict.

James E. Edwards, Jr.
Chief, Branch of Solid Minerals (CO921)
Bureau of Land Management
Colorado State Office
303-239-3773
303-239-3799 fax