| OCR Text |
Show mm $ & i I f 's Of Shale in Limelight I HUGE SOURCE 1 OF FULL LIES I If MOUNTAINS Utah Shale Holds Oil Like a Blotter, Writer MATERIAL TO YIELD -j 22 GALLONS PER TON A Vast Reserve Will Flow Into- Tanks When Wells jm Give Out : Bj n IRR1 B III IT, i Stuff Corn rpondl 114 WASHINGTON Sept. IS Petrol-FH Petrol-FH cum may be n wasting asset for the United States so far as free oil pump-ed pump-ed or flowing from nature's undtr-ground undtr-ground reservoirs Is concerned, but Wc have right here in little old U. fH s. a. a source of petroleum greater limn perhaps doubli the total i rudi oil remaining underground in the, I whole world'. The result of decline in natural petroleum production in this country, then, does not mean necessarily thai wc will be at the mercy of such cut-, side nations as ma control ihe balance bal-ance of the world s oil fields. . WHAT IT MEANS Instead, it noly means the beginning In this country ..f a new Industry thai will give employment tothousands; the building of new .owns In regions now sparsely stettled. the erection of great j plants and the development of Indus-, trial activities in arena far removed i 1 from present centers of Industry, HH The answer to decreeing production 'Jm of natural oil la the Increased produc- 1- ' ' lion of fJiaJf oil. Jn northwestern' 3 P Colorado n . 1 ' n western Wyoming and In northern, Nevada lie enormous mountains of m shale holding, as a blotter holds ink,; more petroleum than nature stored sVB away In oil pools In the whole world To a lesser extent. Pennsylvania Indiana, Kentucky, Texas, Wisconsin, Michigan and West Virginia hobl deposits de-posits of oil shales. j Oil shales consist largrlj of fossil organic debris and the decomposition Of plants and animals, largely aquatic These fossi organic deposits areb Igh In hydrogen contents ana, when sub-1 Jcctcd to heat, yield lari;e proportions of volatile matter which may be con-j denned a: oil. i EN PII 1 1BJ E That the production of oil from shale is practw ill . 1 1 i l"(n pn.veii' in Scotland, where the annual production produc-tion from Scotch shales has for several sever-al years, been around 2,000,000 bar-reia bar-reia annually. The average yield of Scotch shale Isj 22 gallons of petroleum per ton of ShdlS treated. l. E. Winchester, who has mapped most of Uncle Yarn's deposits for th government, reports that lu Colorado and Utah alone there is enough shale i W- capable of yielding gallons or belter - i per ion to provide n minimum petroleum petrol-eum containing '. billion barrels of gasoline, other region:, he estimates, would make th" total petroleum avail-)' able from Amerli in shales between 80 ; 111., I 1(10 li.llion Just what this meana may be understood un-derstood by reculllng that to dale all petroleum produced in 'he United States is leSa than C billion barrels, and that the total estimated free pcrtoleumi li; the world is between 40 and 53 1 billion barrels. As soon as the price of natural crude crosses the line wnere petrol-; cum from shall- can be produced at a profit these vast new reserves will begin be-gin to flow into the market as a stabilizing stabi-lizing factor. Just what that price line would be.i officials now are unable to e,tat Srot-j land, at before-war wage scales, was I able to compete with importations ol American petroleum with h r xhul -oil. A test plant, for experimentation In shale oil distillation, la now being built In Colorado by the Department of Interior- A number of private companies compan-ies have been formed In Colorado and! j- Utah. The likelihood Is tbatw ithin 9f five years mammoth indnstr for; IL converting our mountains into oil ma . MHM ' MOUNTAIN-. )!' H We have, then in our mountains., H literary a "mountain of strength" with, H which to combat any attempted throt- H tiing of American development - Hf through outside control of the world's free petroleum reserves "They form," says David White. H chief geologist, 'an enduring asset, Buf- H flcient to sustain an enormous ultlni.it. load for an Indefinite, period." |
