OCR Text |
Show Tosco io open office There is a change in the phase of development, and Tosco Corp. will keep a presence in Vernal even though the shale oil firm still takes a wait-and-see attitude about development of its tract south of here, a company official said. A pair of officials from Tosco's Boulder, Colo, office were in Vernal last week to check the area's housing situation, situa-tion, one of the number of visits the company makes for that reason, said Dickson Shea, manager of community development and socio-economic planning. plan-ning. "Periodically we send people over there to see what's happening with housing. It reflects nothing other than we get fresh indications of what's happening hap-pening with intentions of housing development," said Shea. A second delegation from the firm's Los Angeles office also visited Vernal to ask about office space, according to Vernal realtor Kay Labrum. Shea said a new office will be opened Ull I W w for community relations purposes, as opposed to environmental study functions func-tions of the office at 3 West Main Street that recently closed. Though the two developments seemed to coincide, the decision to close the office was made long before Exxon's decision to pull out of the Colony Shale Oil Project in western Colorado, said Shea. Exxon and Tosco were partners in the Colony Project. When Exxon stopped its involvement, Tosco exercised its option op-tion to have Exxon buy out its 40 percent per-cent share, with between $350 million and $400 million. Shea said Tosco's intentions for the Sand Wash shale oil tracts hinge on getting get-ting appropriate financing. "That was our position before, and it will continue to be our position." A community relations office, to be located temporarily in a new building owned by a local realty company, "represents the changing phases in development," he said. |