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Show irms Nominate 5 Utah Sites or Oil Shale Development npanies have nominated oil shale tracts in Utah's itah Basin for lease under Interior Department's totype oil shale leasing 'gram. Rep. Sherman P. yd, R-Utah, said Thurs- "he Utalm. who helped lead effort in 1970 to get an oi! shale leasing program off the ground, said the Department would not reveal the names of the companies nominating the Utah tracts for fear of revealing re-vealing privil edged information informa-tion to competitors. '"I think the response so far has been very encouraging." encourag-ing." Rep. Lloyd said. "Many people felt when this program was announced last June, that companies would not be interested in-terested because an oil shale industry was too far down the line. This has not been the. case. Rep. Lioyd said a total of 15 companies have submitted 23 lease nomination for pro totype oil extraction operations. opera-tions. In addition to the five in Utah, 17 tracts havebecn nominated in Colo., and - one " in Wyoming. "This has boon far more .successful than the oil shale leasing program offered in I!l(i7," he said. Under Hie tentative schedule, sched-ule, (ho lease nominations will be evaluated by a com-mil com-mil lec of federal and stale officials, which will recommend recom-mend six tracts for conipeti-tve conipeti-tve bid leasing. The Department Depart-ment will then make a bird selection, and, pending environmental en-vironmental impact studies, will make six leases available availa-ble in the three slates in Dec. Rep. Lloyd said a pilot oil shale industry producing up to 60,000 barrels per day could be in operation by 1075. Maximum production from the industry could be 350,000 barrels per day by 1980, and 900,000 by 1983. .Annual public revenues from royalty payments, income in-come taxes, and pronerly taxes would range from $75 million in 1975 to $522 million by 1 983. Of these revenues, the federal government would got 70 percent, while stat and local governments take 15 percent each. Rep. Lloyd together with former Wyoming Congressman Congress-man John Wold spearheaded an effort in 1970 to convince Interior officials that there would be an interest in an oil shale leasing program. They wrote to the nation's major . energy companies, and reported re-ported a favorable response to the Interior Department. President Nixon announced the leasing program in his Clean Energy Message to Congress in June, 1971. Companies submitting nominations nom-inations in the three states include: American Petrofina of Texas: Ashland Oil, Inc; Atlantic Richfield Co., Barodynamics, Baro-dynamics, Inc.; Occidental Petroleum Pe-troleum Co.; Geokinetics, Inc. Gulf Minerals Resources Co.-Marathon Co.-Marathon Oil Co.; The Oil shale Corp.; Phelps Dodge Corp.; Shell Oil Co.; Sohio Petroleum Co.; Superior Oil Co.; Sun Oil Co.; and Western West-ern Oil Shale Corp. |