Interior's Salazar Moving on Nation's Oil Shale Reserves
Additional applications for leases will be accepted.
Compiled by staff
Published: Oct 22, 2009
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar has taken steps to help the country develop technologies that could potentially unlock the nation's oil shale reserves. Salazar says the Department of the Interior is offering additional opportunities for energy companies to conduct oil shale research, development and demonstration projects on public lands in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. In addition, the Secretary has asked the department's Inspector General to investigate a set of favorable conditions and low royalty rates that were offered on January 15, 2009 – five days before the end of the previous administration – to energy companies holding existing RD&D leases.
For the last century, Americans have been working to find keys to the vast reserves that are locked up in Western shale. "If we are to succeed in unlocking oil shale's great potential," Salazar said, "We must first answer fundamental questions about water use, power use, and environmental and social impacts of commercial-scale development."
Energy companies will have 60 days after publication of a Federal Register notice to submit applications for the second round of RD&D leases. Potential lessees may nominate up to 160 acres for RD&D. If the lessees demonstrate the ability to commercially produce oil equivalent derived from shale, up to 480 additional contiguous acres could be added to the lease for commercial-scale development.
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