Show U union nion oil plans oil shale plant hits goat controls A commercial shale OH oil plant will be built on the colorado plateau by the union oil company of california according to reese H taylor president of the company the plans were revealed in a news letter sent to employed emp loyes by mr taylor who also revealed the company estimates that fr from om one area in northwestern northwest em colorado colora do more than one hundred billion barrels of oil may be produced union oil holds approximately acres of shale land some of which it acquired more than 30 years ago and about three fifths of which was acquired since world war warn II 11 the project must be completely engineered in order that work might begin before two or three years ars although the committee ke hopes to complete its findings within six months said mr taylors report A top management committee has been set up to study how best to exploit our ings in gs and when such exploitation should F begin that americas giant oil producers are dissatisfied with the way the government is controlling oil production is pointed out in a letter to this newspaper received from max lorimore Lorl more assistant comptroller of union OIL the tile dissatisfaction however has not deterred the company from developing shale oil plans said mr laimore Lorl Lr imore more may I 1 call your attention to the indue influence 1 1 e e which the department of inter interior f 0 r through u gh the oil od and gas division and the national petroleum council has had on stimulating the search for and development of a reserve production and refining capacity in the united states in order to provide this country with sufficient capacity to meet a possible national defense emergency the oil industry has been requested to provide an excess capacity over current needs of approximately one million barrels per day equal to about fifteen percent the industry has provided this capacity and the only benefit which which it has enjoyed as a partial offset to the financial burden has been accelerated amortization of the emergency facilities under certificates of necessity of course the industry will not be e able to absorb the financial impact of a permanently excessive capacity therefore ways will w in have to be found to enable e the industry to earn a reasonable return on its defense inspired capacity investment there is another serious problem facing the american oil industry today and that is the adverse effect of unrestricted imports of petroleum on U S production countries of the free world produced a record total of 22 billion barrels of crude oil in the first six months of 1953 more than four per cent over the comparable output of the previous year this was an outstanding record for the free world nat nations as which now are producing nearly ne I 1 90 percent reent of the worlds total crude de oil oll supply but it is idis distressing asing to find that the united states failed to participate in this increase in the opinion of union oil president taylor the U S actually produced less crude oil than it did la in 1952 according to mr taylor this situation clearly illustrates one of the most important problems that the american petroleum industry faces facts today the problem of under producing of developing wells and then being forced to shut them in in order to accommodate the oil coming into this country from foreign areas he said mr taylor makes an appeal for curtailment of excessive imports thus encouraging the domestic oil industry constantly to find and develop new fields |