Bush eyes Utah oil shale
Bush pointed out that the administration has worked on alternative energy sources and gas savings technologies, such as a hydrogen fuel cell, but in the short term, the country needs more domestic production.
He blamed the short supply of oil compared to the growing demand on Democrats, emphasizing that they have rejected every proposal he has sent to increase production in the United States.
"Congress must face a hard reality: Unless members are willing to accept gas prices at today's painful levels — or even higher — our nation must produce more oil," Bush said in a speech delivered in the White House Rose Garden. "And we must start now."
Bush said the equivalent of about 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil sits in the oil shale of the Green River Basin that crosses Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.
"That's more than three times larger than the proven oil reserves of Saudi Arabia," Bush said. "And if it can be fully recovered, it would be equal to more than a century's worth of currently projected oil imports."
"While the cost of extracting oil from shale is still more than the cost of traditional production, it is also less than the current market price of oil," Bush said. "This makes oil shale a highly promising resource."
Bush urged Congress to remove a current ban on oil shale leasing on federal lands, which was inserted into a spending bill last year. He also said that companies have invested in technology to make oil-shale production more affordable and efficient.
But John Baza, director of the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining, said Wednesday that he disagrees with the president's assertion that developing oil shale will help ease current oil prices. Instead, he estimated that commercial production of oil shale is about three to five years from fruition, assuming that industry can even be convinced of its long-term benefits and the environmental hurdles can be handled.
"We'll need, in the future, every form of energy we can develop," he said. "Oil shale in Utah represents a high potential, because we know it's there."
Producing crude oil from oil shale isn't commercially viable today, Baza said, and the president's words represent a continuing disconnect between government and industry that needs to be addressed.
"He's saying that development of that oil shale will affect the high gas prices we're dealing with now, but in order to solve this problem, it's going to take some time," Baza said after the meeting. "Oil shale is not there yet."
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