huge oil reserve in western US?

[smoke20 0]

The U.S. Govt's

Secret Colorado

Oil Discovery

Hidden 1,000 feet beneath the surface of the Rocky Mountains

lies the largest untapped oil reserve in the world — more than 2 TRILLION barrels. On August 8, 2005 President Bush mandated its extraction. Three companies have been chosen to lead the way. Test drilling has already begun...

Northwestern Colorado. August 2005.

The U.S. Energy Department announces the results of a land survey...

It was conducted to determine the official amount of oil a thousand feet deep in the Rocky Mountains...

They reported this stunning news:

We have more oil inside our borders, than all the other proven reserves on earth.

Here are the official estimates:

• 8-times as much oil as Saudi Arabia

• 18-times as much oil as Iraq

• 21-times as much oil as Kuwait

• 22-times as much oil as Iran

• 500-times as much oil as Yemen

...And it's all right here in the Western United States.

James Bartis, lead researcher with the study says, "We've got more oil in this very compact area than the entire Middle East."

More than 2 TRILLION barrels. Untapped.

"That's more than all the proven oil reserves of crude oil in the world today," reports The Denver Post.

When asked about America's least-publicized oil supply, Utah Senator Orrin Hatch said:

"The amounts of oil are staggering. Who would have guessed that in just Colorado and Utah, there is more recoverable oil than in the Middle East?"

Here's the kicker...

The U.S. government already owns the land. It's been right there under our noses the whole time.

In fact, the government's appointed a small group of companies to lead the way to the oil.

Test drilling has already begun.

And the profit forecasts are ridiculous. According to the RAND Corporation (a public-policy think tank for the government), this small region could produce:

Three million barrels of oil per day... That translates into more than $20 BILLION a year.

These are the conservative estimates. The U.S. Energy Dept. estimates an eventual output of 10 million barrels of oil per day. At that rate, the money flow would be even greater.

I've written this letter to tell you everything I've learned about this rarely publicized oil reserve... who's drilling it... and how to get a piece of the world's biggest, untapped oil supply — before it's too late.

Here's the full story...

The Next American Oil Boom

While you almost never hear anything about it in the mainstream press, I've been researching the details of America's biggest oil deposit for the past 18 months, for my monthly investment research advisory, called The S&A Oil Report.

The facts I uncovered during my investigation are nothing short of amazing...

Today, this resource sits idle — untapped — inside more than 16,000 square miles of rock and sand.

Geologists call what lies in this region, oil shale.

What is oil shale?

At first glance, oil shale looks like an ordinary black rock.

It feels grainy to the touch and... greasy. You see, what's inside oil shale has huge governments, Big Oil, venture capitalists, and even everyday investors scrambling to stake a claim.

Oil shale — when heated — oozes bubbling crude.

This precious resource is rare — found only in a few select countries. Places like China, Brazil, Estonia, Morocco, and Australia.

But the real story is how much untapped oil shale lies beneath U.S. soil. As the chart to the right indicates, there's 4-times more oil shale in the U.S. than in all other countries combined.

Over the past 125 years, oil shale has been the secret oil source for a handful of nations. Specifically, those fortunate enough to have it...

• China's been using oil shale since 1929. Today, China is the largest producer of oil from oil shale. It plans to double the daily rate of production soon.

• Estonia is an oil shale dependent economy. Over 90% of the country's electricity is fueled by shale oil. In fact, electricity run on oil shale is a chief export.

• In 1991, Brazil built the world's largest oil shale facility. They've already produced more than 1.5 MILLION tons of oil to make high quality transportation fuels.

• Jordan, Morocco, and Australia have recently announced plans to utilize their oil shale resources. All 3 governments are currently working to build oil shale facilities.

But all these countries' oil shale resources pale in comparison to the U.S. supply. As you can see from the table to the right, the United States dominates the oil shale market — with over 72% of the world's oil shale resources.

Our gargantuan supply of oil lies beneath an area called the Green River Formation — a barren stretch of land covering portions of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming.

World-renowned geologist Walter Youngquist calls the oil beneath the Green River Formation, "a national treasure."

Congress calls this area simply, "the next Saudi Arabia."

It's easy to see why...

This region holds the largest known oil reserve on the planet...

Colorado's Oil Lands —

Restricted for 76 Years, Now

Open for Drilling

There are over 16,000 square miles of oil shale in the Green River formation...

The most abundant areas hold up to 2 million barrels of oil per acre — it's the most concentrated energy source on earth, according to the Energy Department.

The federal government owns 80% of this oil-rich land.

In fact, the government placed protective legislation on this land in 1930, forbidding anyone to touch it.

You see, the government always knew this land was saturated with oil — but getting it out has always been expensive.

Buying oil from foreign countries was always the cheaper bet. It has been for the past 80 years.

Wisely, the government kept the land around for a "rainy day," protecting it with 1930s legislation.

I'm sure you're aware of today's situation at the gas pump. Buying oil from foreign countries has gotten out of hand. The price of oil is sky-high. It's way too expensive to keep buying foreign oil.

In other words, the "rainy day" has finally arrived.

http://www.stansberryonline.com/PRO/0704OI...OIL-COL-49.html

[Jasman0717 9]

They went through the oil shale thing back in the 70s and almost ruined Colorado when all the big oil companies gave up and moved out of western Colorado. I think they have a new process now to get the oil out of the shale! It sure was hard on Colorado when it didn't pan out before so I hope this isn't another political mess

[almaty 19]

They went through the oil shale thing back in the 70s and almost ruined Colorado when all the big oil companies gave up and moved out of western Colorado. I think they have a new process now to get the oil out of the shale! It sure was hard on Colorado when it didn't pan out before so I hope this isn't another political mess

western canada going through the same thing..looks like death valley in parts up there

[Heracles 417]

I don't know if this is true but it would be crazy..

Then we could tell Iran and Venezuela to ###### off overnight..

Edited August 27, 2007 by Boo-Yah!

[mawilson 2,133]

Sounds like a hoax to me.

[Jaseball 0]

Sounds like a hoax to me.

Can't believe everything you read on the intra-web.

Oh clicked on the link. This is an 'investment,' opportunity! Chance of being a scam is now 99.9%

Edited August 27, 2007 by Jaseball

[almaty 19]

so true...

[mawilson 2,133]

"We've got more oil in this very compact area than the entire Middle East."

James Bartis is a real person but I seriously doubt he said that.

[Dan J 277]

Oil shale is more expensive to refine. But now that oil prices are going up, its becoming a more attractive option.

But even then, we currently use about 20 million barrels of oil per day. It wont be able to replace any oil we get from the middle east. Just satisfy the demand for growth.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Getting blood from a stone

By ANDY LENDERMAN | The New Mexican

August 17, 2007

Dozens of scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory have been hired by Chevron Corp. to develop cost-efficient methods to extract oil from rock deposits, research new fuels and find out what’s happening inside oil wells, among other projects.

The easy-to-find oil is gone, many energy experts agree. That’s why companies, and government agencies, are investing in new ways to get the oil out of harder-to-reach places.

Huge rock deposits in North America hold promise. An estimated 2 trillion barrels of oil are trapped in sedimentary rock in the United States, Robert Lestz of Chevron said. Most of it — about 1.5 trillion barrels of oil — lies within three Rocky Mountain states: Wyoming, Utah and Colorado.

By comparison, world petroleum reserves are estimated at roughly 1.3 trillion barrels, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

Shell, Chevron and EGL Resources have leases in the Piceance Creek Basin in Colorado for oil research and development projects. In 2006, the U.S. Department of Interior approved those projects. Seventy-percent of the Colorado formation is managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

The challenge is to overcome obstacles of the past that caused other companies to give up on oil shale. Oil shale is hard to reach because a hydrocarbon called kerogen is buried in the rock. The substance isn’t old enough to be crude oil yet — it’s simply a material that can be converted into a petroleum product.

Previous methods have been relatively costly and energy intensive. Kerogen, which is locked inside the rocks, was mined, heated on the surface and converted to a petroleum product.

It’s much more complicated than simply drilling a hole in the ground and watching crude oil spew forth in liquid form.

In 2006, Chevron asked Los Alamos National Laboratory, which in the 1970s and 1980s did research on shale extraction technologies, to tackle the problem. Chevron pays the salaries of the scientists and the lab’s overhead rate, while the scientists remain employees of the lab, said John Russell, the lab’s head scientist on this project.

Such partnerships with industry are common at the national nuclear-weapons laboratory. Chevron officials declined to say how many millions of dollars the company has invested in the project.

“These guys know how to deliver technology, not just think about science,” said Manny Gonzales, who is Chevron’s liaison with LANL.

Chevron, based in San Ramon, Calif., has given the scientists a variety of assignments, which also include research into biofuels and ways to refine crude oil with less heat.

“We need help in order to be able to secure the energy that we’re going to get from oil and gas in the future,” Gonzales said.

Gonzales has worked with the lab before. LANL scientists developed technology related to liquids and vapors, and he brought it to market with a start-up company in the 1980s. He started the Chevron partnership with Los Alamos in December 2004.

The lab’s researchers, with Chevron’s backing, are trying to figure out a way to extract the kerogen from the rock with a liquid-based solvent, similar to a process used by the food industry to remove caffeine from coffee beans, Lestz said.

Chevron is bankrolling the research of a new process that would occur in situ, or underground. This contrasts with more traditional ways to remove the kerogen, which include strip mining the rock, and then heating it to remove the kerogen.

“The problem is obviously much greater than any single organization can solve on their own,” Lestz said. Although Los Alamos is the flagship institution for this research, other universities and national labs are also involved, he said.

He called oil shale “a world-class resource.”

“It’s also a world-class problem, in a sense that there are so many technical complexities associated with it,” Lestz said.

Russell noted that the oil-shale project has the potential to draw down a 100-year supply of oil for the United States.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Chevron Press Release dated 9/25/06:

Chevron and Los Alamos National Laboratory Launch Research Project to Unlock Hydrocarbons Trapped in Oil Shale Formations

SAN RAMON, Calif., Sep. 25, 2006 -- Chevron Corporation (NYSE: CVX) and Los Alamos National Laboratory today announced the creation of a joint research project to improve the recovery of hydrocarbons trapped in oil shales and slow-flowing oil formations.

The goal of the Chevron-Los Alamos collaboration is to develop an environmentally responsible and commercially viable process to recover crude oil and natural gas from western U.S. oil shales. The joint research and development effort will focus on oil shale formations in the Piceance Basin in Colorado.

...

Oil shales are sedimentary rocks containing a high proportion of organic matter called kerogen that can be converted into crude oil or natural gas. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates the United States holds 2 trillion barrels of oil shale resources, with about 1.5 trillion barrels of those resources located in the western United States, primarily in Wyoming, Colorado and Utah.

[Caladan 19]

Sounds like a hoax to me.

Just from the writing style. It's got a sekrit government conspiracy, and some fortuitous timing. There's energy out west, but it's coal and Montana, afaik. I know, like VJ Troll's post indicates, that there's theoretical ways of getting oil out of shale, but it's still in development.

[Jaseball 0]

Sounds like a hoax to me.

Just from the writing style. It's got a sekrit government conspiracy, and some fortuitous timing. There's energy out west, but it's coal and Montana, afaik. I know, like VJ Troll's post indicates, that there's theoretical ways of getting oil out of shale, but it's still in development.

Yep and Chevron, the labs, or the government isn't interested in your $10K or above investment because they already have the financial backing to develop something to extract this if possible.

[Jasman0717 9]

They went through the oil shale thing back in the 70s and almost ruined Colorado when all the big oil companies gave up and moved out of western Colorado. I think they have a new process now to get the oil out of the shale! It sure was hard on Colorado when it didn't pan out before so I hope this isn't another political mess

western canada going through the same thing..looks like death valley in parts up there

After the oil companies pulled out Denver had a huge vacany rate with all its office buildings, like 70 or 80 percent vacant.

[Jamie76 0]

The problem with oil shale is that it's not really oil. It's kerogen. It's the pre-oil substance. If we waited around for a few million years, we would be sitting pretty. In order to release this kerogen, you need to speed up geological time basically by heating the rock. Shell is doing some work there now. They heat the rock, but in order to keep the released hydrocarbons from causing ground water problems, the perimeter surrounding the heating is actually frozen. Right now, it costs about a barrel of oil energy equivalent to get 1.5 barrels out of the ground. Still not as good as what we get from mining oil sands.