Grand Junction – Federal officials have received 10 applications for a new government oil- shale program, part of a plan geared toward taking advantage of a largely untapped energy resource in the West.
The leasing program grants access to 160-acre tracts of public land and 10 years to explore technology. Getting oil out of shale rock has not proved economically feasible in the past.
All the applications in Colorado are for land in Rio Blanco County, according to the Colorado office of the Bureau of Land Management.
“There are some bigger companies like Shell that have applied, and some of the companies are really small,” said Karen Zurek, acting head of the BLM’s solid- minerals division. “Some of them know what they’re doing, and some others probably don’t.”
The leasing program was announced in June, and the deadline to apply was earlier this month.
“I’m floored that the number of applicants was so small,” said Paul Lerwick of EGL Resources, a company in Midland, Texas, that applied for a lease. “…Most people in the industry with this current boom are busier than a one-armed paper hanger with natural gas and oil.”
Oil shale last boomed in the late 1970s before going bust in 1982, when Exxon shut down its western Colorado project because of costs. Some companies, though, have continued to look at shale technology, hoping higher oil prices would make the industry viable.
“Some of our work started 20 years ago,” said William H. Pelton, a partner with Phoenix Wyoming Inc., a Denver company that applied for a lease. “This is about a resource in our own back yard, and hopefully this is our chance to develop it. This is one of the things we have been gearing up for.”
