Show Gilsonite Plant of BY Robert W. V Tribune Business Editor American Gilsonite Thursday reported its conversion of Uintah Basin Gilsonite and metallurgical grade coke a In the a joint affiliate of Standard Oil Company of California and Barber Oil becomes the first firm in history of the American petroleum industry to produce gasoline profitably from materials other than crude It lias meant a 16 million dollar investment for the two companies all of which funds came from private sources and none of it from federal or other public National Interest Widespread and interest has been attracted to the historic significance of mining the by hydraulic methods at Utah and transporting it in a water-slurry by 72 miles of pipeline to this community near Grand where it is transformed into sellable products for consumption by public and This event is testified to by the public officials ton regional and state levels and by many representatives of petroleum and chemical industries who have gathered here for the official dedication of the coke- refinery plant But to Utah's Uintah Basin containing as it docs more than has yet been found by the drill in the entire world history of the petroleum industry the American Gilsonite success is 01 even more Long-Time Dream To this huge and sparsely settled basin of the Ute Indian and lonely of the deer and mountain the of gilsonite has been a dream since mining of the material started near Uintah in In this the present million dollar investment of the represents the necessary bring into production an oil field with hundreds of millions of barrels of American Gilsonite considers that it is much 1 cheaper to develop a portion of the billions of barrels of in the Uintah Basin to drilling of about 44 dry holes for a field with one hundred million barrels of It is now the hope that these great resources will see a more rapid and profitable with great benefit to As The Tribune was Original design and facilities pipeline and lays ground work for an early doubling of capacity based upon market acceptance of the Only the more accessible and easily-mined portions of the hundreds of millions of barrels of oil contained in gilsonite In Uintah are now being worked in this early at the company EDITOR'S NOTE Tho following article was taken from the Friday morning and is a detailed story of the completion of a pipeline that will transport Uintah Basin gilsonite from mines at to silo of a new refinery Tho article was written by Robert W. Tribune business editor and is being reprinted in- this week's has for more than 50 the coke-refining operation at shows a pioneer path for the economic conversion of bitumen and oil shade gas-oils of the Great Basin BEING THE and highest in of either the bitumen of Asphalt Ridge near Vernal or the from deposits in the Green River formation of Wyoming and gilsonite is first to come into practical economic use in the petroleum in- Growing needs of our western population for will spur the use of bitumen and The entire operation is made possible by steps in recent years steps which telescope the economics of producing high-specification products from low-grade materials to The gathering of distinguished guests at Gilsonite includes George D. Clyde of Utah and Stephen L. R. of and Interior Secretary Fred E. Roy E. Salt Lake vice president and production manager for American will hand a switch to the two governors who by pushing simultaneous will release a spectacular fountain of moving out of the 72 i mile pipeline under pounds of pressure per square E. F. Salt Lake president of the will deliver a speech of who has directed the present project for more than ten declares that the coke-refinery economic feasibility of deriving petroleum products from other than conventional We believe this is opening unlimited possibilities for the vast materials now lying unused in this A flight over the two-state region involved in American Gilsonite operations discloses three important engineering American Gilsonite at Bonanza has transformed its operation employing persons into a hydraulic eliminating the grave dangers of the past of explosion and fire In the relatively narrow to 16 feet in At Cowboy vein on tho Eureka mining Is carried out on a basis by use of a high pressure jet stream of water two operated by two men working under conditions of per cent Here hundreds of feet In the bowels of the these jet streams roar like demons as chunks of the brittle hydrocarbon arc slashed from the working face by the machine appearing not unlike a great praying The broken gilsonite is washed by water down a V-shaped trough to the bottom of the mine where men work in bright lights operating crusher and hydraulic systems which lift the crushed ore in a water slurry to the It is an amazing sensation to drop swiftly downward feet in blackness by mine cage to come upon this workroom protected by concrete and steel girders where the white painted walls of the vein bring the yellow and orange machinery into Tho miners produce tons of ore a day during a five-day Of this tons in shiny form is pushed through the pipeline to at the rate of feet per Remaining ore goes into battery paint and other specialty uses developed over tho years bv the A flight ever the pipeline reveals two springing leaps of the line over the rugged terrain of eastern These are a foot jump at Evacuation Wash and a foot leap over the White River from whence American Gilsonite obtains its water for the mining and pipeline returned in lage part to the Colorado at From an elevation of feet at the line climbs over Baxter pass at drops precipitously to Gilsonite at about At the Colorado the gilsonite is through a system of pressure reducers which prevent the ore from dropping out of solution Here it is dried in filters produced at in Salt Lake Both at the mine and the refinery the form maintains a stockpile of surplus ore so that at various points in the important units can be kept operative even if there is an interruption in the chain of Filtered ore is carried covered conveyor to a melting unit where the water is Gilsonite contains five and a half ban-els of gas-oil per and the economics of this new-process is based upon sale of barrels of premium and regular grade gasoline in the western Colorado market and some tons daily of high specification metallurgical grade coke to the aluminum where it is used as in electrical of that becomes the first in the petroleum industry to produce such high specification cokes as a major At the high petroleum coke of oil refining are dumped on the market for they can Two huge coke-refiners accomplish tho basic separation of tho and the Operating in one coke-refiner Is discharging while the other is being reamed of Its coke-product by a novel of hlf These units look not unlike farm silos with oil industry drilling rigs on top of units produce the metallurgical grade The gasoline refinery Is composed of three plants a hydrogen-producing facility to take the noxious nitrogen from the a thermal which also produces some by-product and a modern catalytic reforming unit which makes very high octane It is that nothing is wasted in the operation waste gases from the facility being used in turn to generate necessary operating A use for ammonia solutions produced Is boing researched as are the many potentials of aromatics found in the Uintah Basin Lee P. a former superintendent of the Salt Lake Re-fing North Salt Lake heads both the coke-refining at and the mine program at |