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<br />. <br /> <br />STATES AND LEASING <br /> <br />~ <br />~ <br />00 <br />~ <br /> <br />Despite attempts by the U.S. Government to encourage development <br />of oil shale, little progress ~as made in leasing from 1920 to 1972. <br />The first recent, major attempt to test the prospects for development <br />of the Federal oil shale resources ~as in 1968, ~hen the U.S. Depart- <br />ment of the Interior issued a prospectus on the subjact (Ash, 1974). <br />After extensions of time allowed for core drilling, sampling, and <br />other testing, and a series of further encouraging actions by the <br />department, there were some successful bids submitted in 1974. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />Colorado's Tract C-a lease was obtained by Rio Blanco Oil Shale <br />Company, a partnership of Standard of Indiana and Gulf Oil. Tract C-b <br />~as obtained originally by Atlantic Richfield, Ashland, Shell, and <br />TaSCa. (Later, all but Ashland abandoned the C-b lease and Occidental <br />Oil came in.) Utah's Tract U-a went to Sun Oil Company and Phillips, <br />~hile Tract U-b went to the ,mite River Shale Oil Corporation. The <br />two tracts in Wyoming's Washakie Basin have not been bid on, probably <br />due to the lower grade of shale located there. Union Oil Company is <br />experimenting with shale oil production on its ~holly-owned 20,000- <br />acre block north of Grand Valley, Colorado (Lyle, 1978). Development <br />engineers have a lease at Anvil Points to continue research on su~face <br />retorting. Others involved are Colony Group near Grand Valley, Colo- <br />rado, and Occidental Oil Shale Group at a site in Logan \;ash, Colorado. <br /> <br />The locations of the sL~ tracts are illustrated in Figure C.I. <br />Tracts W-a and W-b are located in the drainage of the Little Snake. <br />Colorado's Tract C-a is located in the Piceance Creek drainage between <br />Douglas Creek and Piceance Creek,and Tract C-b is upstream on the <br />Piceance. Tracts V-a and U-b are in proximity on the south slope of <br />the White River drainage. <br /> <br />DEVELOPING THE RESOURCE <br /> <br />Recent improvements in equipment and mining methods open new <br />possibilities for developing the oil shale resources. It is feasible <br />to remove as much as 200 feet of overburden, and in the future it is <br />expected that larger capacity shovels and draglines will allow econ- <br />omic removal of 400 feet of overburden (Donnel and Austen, 1971). <br />Much of the shale in Colorado is covered by less than 400 feet of over- <br />burden, which means that in rich shale zones open-pit mining ~ould be <br />feasible, if the shale were ~ rich (25 or more gpt) and if the mines <br />could handle over 100,000 tons per day. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />Traditional room-and-pillar underground mlnlng methods have been <br />applied in some of the resource areas. Commercial scale roorn-a~d-pil1ar <br />mining of oil shale has been demonstrated by the U.S. Bureau of }[ines <br />at Anvil Points, Colorado, and by Colony Development at Parachute Creek <br />(Priea, 1974). <br /> <br />C-IO <br />