A baking-soda company and an energy-industry giant are the latest companies that have received approval to research how to economically extract oil from oil shale on federal land.
The Bureau of Land Management on Thursday approved oil shale research, development and demonstration leases for Natural Soda Holdings Inc. and ExxonMobil Exploration Co. in the Piceance Basin in northwestern Colorado. The decision is subject to a 30-day appeal period before the leases are issued.
Both companies had applied for leases after the BLM announced in 2009 that it was awarding a second round. The agency awarded six research leases in Utah and Colorado in 2007 to Chevron USA Inc., Shell Frontier Oil and Gas Inc., and E.G.L. Resources Inc. to test ways to develop oil shale.
ExxonMobil would hydraulically fracture the oil shale, fill the fractures with an electrically conductive material, then heat it by conducting electricity along the fracture, spokesman Patrick McGinn said.
Natural Soda, based in Rifle, plans to use a process researched in Australia to liquefy low-grade coal, spokesman Bill Ray said.
