BOARD01567

• Board Meeting Date: 5/1/1975
• Description: Agenda or Table of Contents, Minutes, Memos
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

which is blindly opposed to energy developments. The Governor intends
to take a selective look at each project. I know from personal assur-
ances that he has given to me that he is interested in developing at
least a prototype oil shale industry in Colorado so that we can fully
evaluate the impact of that industry. To that end, we intend to move
forward and give every possible assistance to the development of a
prototype oil shale industry, and eventually, we hope, to a full scale
industry.

With that setting, I would like to call upon Mr. Berry, representing the
Rio Blanco Oil Shale Project in Colorado and the consortium of oil
companies that has obtained one of the principal leases in the White
River Basin. Mr. Berry, if you will take over please.

Mr. Berry: Thank you, Mr. Sparks. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen
of the audience. I am K. L. Berry. I am vice president of processing
for the Rio Blanco Oil Shale Project, a joint enterprise of both the
Gulf Oil Company and Standard Oil Company of Indiana. I am accompanied
here today by Mr. Fred Witachek, who is operating the slides at the
moment, and Mr. William Waldeck, our attorney in these matters.

Tract C-a which I am going to talk about, is the first of the prototype
oil shale leases. Gulf and Standard submitted the winning' bid., for
Tract C-a in January, 1974. A preliminary development plan was sub-
mitted at that time, wherein we estimated that a 50,000 barrel per day
syncrude plant would require 11,500 acre-feet of water per year. In
December, 1974, we retained the Morrison-Knudsen Company of Boise,
Idaho to make extensive engineering studies of various alternative
methods of developing Tract C-a. One of the specific assignments to M-K
was to make studies of feasible ways to reduce the water consumption for
oil shale development. These studies will not be completed until
December, 1975. We feel that an estimate of 10,000 acre-feet of water
per year for a 50,000 barrel per day plant is conservative, based on
results to date.

I

Prior to the lease sale, the federal government estimated recovery of
a little over four billion barrels of oil from Tract C-a at an oil shale
grade of 30 gallons per ton. Based on this estimate and other studies
made by Gulf and Standard prior to submitting the winning bid, we have
projected an ultimate development of 300,000 barrels per day from
Tract C-a; provided, of course, that economics are favorable.

At the annual rate of 10,000 acre-feet for each 50,000 barrels per day,
the 300,000 per day ultimate development will require 60,000 acre-feet I
of water per year.

Our plans are to submit a detailed development plan in March, 1976, for
Tract C-a for an initial plant of 50,000 barrels per day. Depending
on the time required for approval of this plan by the federal government,
construction could start in early 1977, and the plant be fully on stream
by early 1980. Currently, we are making plans to supply 10,000 acre-feet
of water per year to the initial plant, partly with groundwater obtained
from the dewatering operations necessary for mining of shale from the

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