Gunnison news-champion., 1917-09-28
THE OIL SHALE INDUSTRY
GETTING UNDER MOTION

Travelling west on the Denver &
Rio Grandc railroad after leaving
Glenwood Springs and passing the
towns of New Castle and Rifle, on
your right hand you will see a series
of high cliffs which rise from 5000
to 1000 feet above the valley of the
Grand River and extend into the
Cintah Basin, eastern Utah. This
country is rough, erosions deep, and
numerous creeks have plowed their
way through the rocks, making deep
gorges and canons. No one knows
just exactly when attention first was
attracted to the wealth that is stored
in these Book Cliff Mountains, but it
was probably some campers who
on building their fire to cook their
meal were surprised to find that the
rocks which they piled around their
fire very quickly ignited and burned,
leaving dark ash. This led to in
vestigation, and it was discovered
that in these shale rocks there is an
immense storage of oil.
While the presence of oil in the
shale was known, little attention was
paid to it for several years, as the
obtaining of oil from wells was con-
pul Will
in the production of petroleum from.
wells and an increase in the con-
sumption, the officials of the geo.
logical survey of the United States
Government decided to investigate
the oil shale of western Colorado and
eastern Utah.
1t was in 1918 that an investiga-
tion began of the Green River for
nation in Colorado and Utah and
rough field tests were made to de-
termine the richness of the shale.
The result of this examination was
sufficient to warrant further invest
igation, and this was continued dur
ing the summers of 1914 and 1915
by the United States Geological Sur
vey, who devised more efficient and
portable apparatus for determining
the quantity of crude oil in the shale
and the amount of gas and of am
monium sulphate (fertilizer) that
might be obtained as a by-product.
The investigation is summed up in
bulletin Sal F:
.'In Colorado alone there is suffi-
cient shale, in beds that are three
feet or more thick and capable Of
yielding more oil than the average
shale now mined in Scotland, to yield
about twenty billion barrels of crude
oil, from which two billion barrels of
gasoline may be extracted by ordinary
methods of refining, and in Utah
there is probably an equal amount
of shale just as rich. The same shale
in Colorado, in addition to the oil,
should produce, with but little added
cost, about three hundred millionI
tons of ammonium sulphate, COM
pound especially valuable as a fer
tilizer."
The business of destructive distil-I
lation of oil from shale is compara-l
lively new in the United States, but
it has been in existence for many
years in Scotland, where the differ-l
ent concerns pay handsome dividends
on large investment. In Scotland
the shale has to be mined at consider-i
able depth, the same as coal. and thej
average yield of oil is less than twen-
ty-five gallons to the ton of shale. |
Contrast this with the conditions mi
Colorado, where the shale deposit4I
are above ground, and the yield Of
oil from seventy-five to one hundred
and twenty-five gallons to the ton Of |
shale, and it will be seen that thel
opportunity for profitable retuYnI
ON the investment Is much more fay-t