Oil Shale Outlook

American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers, Inc. This paper was prepared for the 1974 Eastern Regional Meeting of the Society of Petroleum Engineers of AIME, to be held in Washington, D.C., Nov. 14–15, 1974. Permission to copy is restricted to an abstract of not more than 300 words. Illustrations may not be copied. The abstract should contain conspicuous acknowledgment of where and by whom the paper is presented. Publication elsewhere after publication in the JOURNAL paper is presented. Publication elsewhere after publication in the JOURNAL OF PETROLEUM TECHNOLOGY or the SOCIETY OF PETROLEUM ENGINEERS JOURNAL is granted upon request to the Editor of the appropriate journal provided agreement to give proper credit is made. Discussion of this paper is invited. Three copies of any discussion should be sent to the Society of Petroleum Engineers office. Such discussion may be presented at the above meeting and, with the paper, may be considered for publication in one of the SPE magazines. Oil shale is somewhat like the "old-maid" aunt. She has always been a good prospect for marriage but each suitor seems to back away at the church door. There are still a good many admirers but most think she is a bit too expensive to take to the alter right now without a fairly substantial dowry. There also is a feeling that some members of her family really don't want to see the old gal married anyhow. So, she remains an aging maiden wistfully awaiting a lover rich enough, bold enough, and dedicated enough to overcome the obstacles fate placed in her path. What then is the outlook for oil shale. It is pretty much the same as has been said of the outlook for Brazil. Brazil (and oil shale) have a great future, always have had a great future and always will have a great future; but the present is impossible to predict. Look at what happened this year. On January 8, $210 million was paid for a 5,120-acre Federal oil shale lease, the highest per acre price ever paid for a petroleum prospect. Other leases in the petroleum prospect. Other leases in the same sale brought from $45 million to $117 million in high bids. Yet, in, October the Colony group (Atlantic Richfield, Ashland, Shell and Tosco) deferred their commercial shale venture on private lands after spending 10 years and more than $50 million preparing for it. Adding further to the paradox, the Colony group was high bidder on the $117 million Federal lease. And consider this. A prestigious Federal Interagency Task Force studying the role of oil shale for Project Independence arrived at the conclusion that under an accelerated program a 1,000,000 B/D industry could be operational by 1985 without violating Federal environmental regulations or exceeding other constraints.