Show oil shaie shale mining very mechanized the bureau of mines has dem at rifle colo ehst that mining of oil shale can be high ly r mechanized said news re ports arts wilburn C schroeder dire d tor of the bureaus synthetic fuels bioli branch told the tho house an ap committee that one of the mines at the rifle demon demons plant is essentially an underground quarry the rine rifle plant was construct cd ed for lor research imo into the me pro of oil and gasoline from oil shale shaie in testimony before the com corn cittee which was made public wednesday schroeder said that in the big rifle mine it is antici anuci that output of shale will reach from forty to afif fifty ty tons per r man per day this year IT 1 I A i 1 2 1 in contrast to coal mining operations which run on an average somewhat under six tons man day we are shooting at a production almost ten times that figure he said the reason he explained Is that in shale mining the bureau Is working a seventy foot seam scam the oil shale beds of the west ar are 1 e well suited to large scale mechanized mining he continued it has been at rifle that rooms sixty by feet can be opened with out danger the beds are es senti ally flat and multiple drills mounted on trucks are taken underground to drill the shale an electric shovel with three yard bucket is used for loading the shale bed being mined Is seventy feet thick and yields an average of thirty gal ions of oil a ton J the electria elec trie shovel so vel vei los loads about tons of shale an hour the committee was told schroeder said the bureau has already already lai lal laiq out the design for a commercial plant at rifle |