Oil Shale

DENVER — The federal government’s new plan for oil shale development on public lands would keep activity off thousands of acres of environmentally sensitive areas, with new leases initially being issued strictly for research on how to commercially produce oil from oil shale in Utah, Wyoming and Colorado.

CHEYENNE, Wyo. -- The U.S Bureau of Land Management on Thursday sought more public comment as it reconsiders a Bush administration oil shale development plan.

WASHINGTON -- The Bureau of Land Management announced today that it has begun the process to take a fresh look at commercial oil shale and tar sand plans issued under the previous Administration.

The BLM will publish in tomorrow's Federal Register a Notice of Intent to Prepare a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) governing allocation of oil shale and tar sands resources on BLM lands in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming.

"The BLM remains committed to a thoughtful, orderly, and responsible oil shale development program," said BLM Director Bob Abbey.

A new drilling technique is opening up vast fields of previously out-of-reach oil in the western United States, helping reverse a two-decade decline in domestic production of crude.

Companies are investing billions of dollars to get at oil deposits scattered across North Dakota, Colorado, Texas and California. By 2015, oil executives and analysts say, the new fields could yield as much as 2 million barrels of oil a day -- more than the entire Gulf of Mexico produces now.

This new drilling is expected to raise U.S. production by at least 20 percent over the next five years. And within 10 years, it could help reduce oil imports by more than half, advancing a goal that has long eluded policymakers.