| Show Oil Shale Development Wait Wail Until the The fOllowing article written by Don C Woodward business editor of the Deseret News is reprinted in the Ex press press because of the articles article's interest to residents of the Uintah Basin lID an area richly 10 f 11 shale holding billions of barrels of f oil The Mountain West is not like ry to see development of a maj or oil shale industry until at least the mid mid and it may take teke oven even longer than that This This is the view of Dr Ray RayD RayD D Sloan who heads the new DeW department of Coal and Oil Shale for Humble Bumble Oil Co 4 Dr Sloan however was opo op that oil shale deposits n n Utah Colorado and Wyoming Will eventually be developed nd when they are the economic on this area will be shared Enormous lI Ills s view was was shared by nearly every other other- top om ial of Humble Oil Co from the president on down who spoke to newsmen during a alou lou day press tour of Rumbles Humbles Mr Sloans presentation on oil shale m made de the following points Of the three states mention mention- mentioned ed d Colorado has by far the significant deposits and therefore Will see the first major oil shale s try Colorados Colorado's dos do's Basin deposits contain as high ns as 15 trillion on barrels of oil and the recoverable portion is estimated at t billion barrels Today's domestic reserves of crude oil pre re about 31 billion barrels water will be a critical foe foe- tor Development of a 2 million barrel per day industry will ill re- re require require quire a minimum of acre feet of water per year and R if refineries are also located in inthe inthe the area the requirement for water will go up to acre feet per year Moreover if in Situ in place methods be be- be become come feasible the quantity of water we be substantially in creased probably by twice as much It would not be unreason unreason- unreasonable able ble to estimate that o 1 12 2 million barrel per day shale oil devel would bring to 1 million or more people to the area rea being worked said Mr Sloan Sloan- While th the economic im im- im pac of this many people on the desolate lands of eastern Utah pad imd western Colorado would be enormous these people would also need great quantities of water Before Before any sizable shale ail industry can evolve a sails satis factory leasing program for the public lands must be develop develop- developed ed said Mr Sloan Fully 90 percent of the tho total reserve is ison ison on public domain lands and the government so far has been ex ex- ex extremely cautions ul about letting these lands out for lease In any event the lands are withdrawn wit drawn from leasing at the moment and the decision to let lel them go is causing a great a- a a of political worry nn and anxiety hi Washington Mr Sloan said that it t would logical al to assume that try research and development work would justify an expand expand- ing expanding shale oil aU industry by the middle of 01 the lIe add added ell that approximately five to 10 years will be required by most operators to carry out development research and to design and construct commer commer- commercial cial facilities alone The capital investment for the plants will also be hIgh something like million for a barrel barrell per day plant Dr Charles F Jones press dent of Humble Oil said that Humble and other companies are now working on ways to extract the shale oil so it can compete on a price basis This will take time and money but we will eventually come up with the answer he said Sooner or later oil from shale will participate in the energy enery marketplace e and com com- compete pete with oil from conventional deposits |
