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Show Syntana-Utah oil shale project outlined by local representative Oil shale activities of the Sy tana-Utah tana-Utah Project were explained to the Vernal Ver-nal Area Chamber of Commerce members last week in the directors' meeting by W.R. "Rod" Rozier, area project representative. Rozier stated that Syntana-Utah is a joint venture of Synthetic Oil Corporation Corpora-tion of Oklahoma City and Quintana Minerals Corporation of Houston, Texas. Tex-as. The agreement to form the Utah oil shale venture was made in the third quarter of 1980. Synthetic Oil Corporation has oil shale technology, project formulation, design and development experience and Quintana Minerals Corp. has financing, finan-cing, construction, start-up and operations opera-tions experience, said Rozier. Syntana-Utah has 8,000 acres of state leased land within five miles of the Bonanza area. Three sites of over 3,200 acres are currently under investigation and an initial facility will be selected ' for development this year, stated Rozier. Those assisting with the project include in-clude Davy McKee Corporation, engineering and . construction; VTN Consolidated, engineering and environmental en-vironmental studies; American Gilsonite Co., mining; C.K. Geoenergy Corporation, consultants in geology, hydrology, petroleum engineering and resource evaluation; Merrill Lynch, investment in-vestment banking and project financing. financ-ing. Wayne Shannan is the program manager. He is executive vice president presi-dent of Synthetic Oil Corp. and is located in Cupertino, Calif. The initial facility of Syntana-Utah unit number one is planned on the concept con-cept of utilizing underground mining and surface retorting technologies. Current plans call for a mine output of 20,000 tons per day and retort and support sup-port facilities sized to produce 10,000 barrels per day, with scale-up capacities of both mine and surface facilities to support an output of 50,000 barrels per day. Syntana-Utah will not attempt to develop its own technology for shale retorting, but will consider leasing technology from Paraho, Superior Oil, Tosco, Turgi-Ruhrgas and Union Oil, said Rozier. A time-frame schedule for the project was outlined by Rozier. A twelve month feasibility study will start in 1981 an environmental en-vironmental permits and approvals will also start this, year and be complete by December of 1982. Site work on the sur- face retort and supporting facilities will start in July 1982. Construction will begin in October 1982 and be completed by October 1984. The detailed design of the mine will be completed by March 1982. Site "A" construction on the mine will begin January 1982 and be completed in 27 months, March 1984. The second mine will take 36 months to finish, January 1982 to December 1985. Syntana-Utah will concurrently work on efforts to acquire contiguous land, work on an exploratory field program, engineering evaluation of surface retorting retor-ting technology and evaluate in-situ technology. Later facilities may be based upon a utilization of some combination of surface sur-face retorting as well as modified in-situ in-situ procesing to improve resource recovery potential at a given geographic location. Rozier stated that as a rule-of-thumb it takes about 30 emloyees for every 1,000 barrels-a-day oil shale operation. It is estimated a 10,000 barrel operation would require 300 employees. But this does not include the construction workers needed to build the plant and mining facility, concluded Rozier. |