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• (5) An estimate of the quantity and quality of the mineral resources <br />The AMSO RD&D Lease and commercial preference rights lease are in an area of the Piceance <br />Basin expected to have an overall resource of 1400 ft of oil shale averaging more than 25 gal/ton, or <br />about 2 million barrels/acre of oil in place (Stanfield et al., USBM Report 7051, 1967). Resource <br />calculations from the Yellowstone Sulfur Creek #1 Well, Shell Well 24-21-298 and AMSO Well 29- <br />82-103-CHI give an estimate of 2.6 million barrels/acre from the top of the Mahogany Zone to the <br />base of R-0. <br />Because the initial RD&D activities and commercialization are expected to be in the Illite Mining <br />Interval, more detailed information is provided here for those depths in Appendix 2-1. We define <br />the Illite Mining Interval as the oil shale below the nahcolitic oil shale, which occurs at a depth of <br />about 1830 ft. In the Yellowstone Sulfur Creek #1 Well, the top of the Illite Mining Interval is close <br />to the top of L-2, which is about 1890 ft deep and about 50 ft above the illite-rich shale itself. This <br />mining interval has 770,000 bbls/acre, or roughly 30% of the total resource. <br />A challenge associated with the illite oil shale strategy is the limited knowledge of illite oil shale <br />properties. As shown in Appendix 4-2, initial characterization of illite oil shale samples <br />indicates that the kerogen quality is similar to that from the carbonate oil shale in the higher <br />strata. The fractional conversion of kerogen to oil during Fischer Assay is about the same for <br />both carbonate and illite oil shales. The oil retorted from illite oil shale contains slightly more <br />long-chain alkanes (wax) than in typical Mahogany Zone (carbonate) oil shale. <br />• <br /> <br />44