OCR Text |
Show Oil for U. S. Navy in Colorado Shale PLANS are being made for encouraging en-couraging the production of oil and its products from shale in Colorado with a view to insuring an ample reserve for the United States navy in the event of an emergency. Definite action in that direction is expected ex-pected at the next session of congress when Senator Lawrence C. Phipps will seek an appropriation for an experimental ex-perimental plant of commercial size for treating shale on the government's naval reserve of 45,000 acres in the western part of the state. Last May, Rear Admiral Hilary P. Jones and Lieut. Com. M. Cv Robert--son, of the L'nited States navy, and Rodney G. Bush, state mineralogist of California, members of the president's commission appointed to advise him on the government oil reserves, made a personal investigation of the Colorado shale resources. That visit was followed fol-lowed in July by another by Rear Admiral Ad-miral Harry H. Rousseau, chief of the civil engineering corps of the navy, who made a special report on the government's gov-ernment's shale reserve in Colorado. The reports on these two investigations investi-gations were not made public and were for the benefit of the officials at Washington, but the fact that follow ing their submission, Curtis D. Wilbur, secretary of the navy, planned a personal per-sonal inspection of the reserves, indicates indi-cates that the recommendations were of a favorable nature and that important im-portant developments may soon be expected. ex-pected. Statistics gathered from various sources by the Colorado immigration department indicate that at least $5,-000,000 $5,-000,000 have already been expended in machinery, road building and equipment equip-ment and the establishment of 14 camps in western Colorado for doing annual assessment work on shale lands, building experimental retorts, conducting mining operations and going go-ing through the preliminary stages of establishing a new industry. Recent figures show that the government's govern-ment's naval reserves in Colorado alone have an oil content of 4,544,-000.000 4,544,-000.000 barrels of crude oil ; that there are 896,000 acres of known shale lands in Colorado with an estimated total oil content of 89,600,000,000 barrels, bar-rels, or more than ten times greater than the world's total oil production In 1920. The potential ecVtiomic possibilities possi-bilities of such an enormous undeveloped unde-veloped resource are almost incomprehensible. |