The Cordova daily times., 1923-01-17
OIL STALE AN IMPORTANT
 RESOURCE OF UNITED STATES

WASHINGTON, Jan. 17-When the flow of that liquid gold known as pc troleum gives sign of stacking, and as a consequence the nations millions of automobiles and tractors and motor busses seem likely to diminish for lack of fuel the far-stretching re- serves of oil shale in the United States stand out as the most import, ant resources of substitutes for pc troleum oils, says the United States Bureau of Mines.
 These shales, veritable untapped reservoirs of oil, underlies enormous areas of the country. Those of the most economic importance occur in Colorado, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming Great areas of black shale occur, how ever, in various eastern states, not ably Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio, and other shales are found in many states. The great economic importance of oil shales is that when the industry is properly developed, the United States will have new domestic SUD- ply of mineral oils, which cannot be cut off in time of war, and which will always be ready to help meet the na- tion's demand for oil.
 There is good reason to believe that in the next several years the do- mestic production of petroleum will decrease, while the demand for its production will increase" the bureau officials declare, "and oil shales can well make up for the deficiency of crude petroleum as source of re- fined mineral oil products.'
 The future of the oil shale industry in this country will depend primarily upon the relative supply of, and de- mand for, petroleum products in the regions remote from the seaboards, &C., cording to the bureau. However, even under the most favorable conditions, development of American shale oil must be slow, it was added Although this can be hastened by the employ ment of specialists, the proper kind Of experimental work, and sincere coop eration and mutual helpfulness among oil shale operators.
 To produce oil from shades the in dustry would have to approach the countrys annual coal production, if a great demand is to be met. Nearly HOO shale retorting plants each put ting through 1000 tons of shale every day in the year would be necessary to meet the present rate of petroleum production. These figures are, based on all assumption that the shale mined would yield an average of F gallons of oil per ton. The total quan- tity of shale to be mined, then, would reach 4OO,000000 tons
 This would also require investment of great sums of capital to make the shale oil industry one of commercial consideration. It is probable that the investment necessary for an oil shale retorting and refining plant will ap- proximate $3,000 per barrel of shale oil daily capacity bureau experts fig nre. The present annual production of domestic petroleum is at the rate of over 400 900, 900 barrels. The in vestment in retorts and refinerles alone for an industry to approach this magnitude would be more than $3,OOO,- 100000. This does not include estl- mated cost of lands, opening and de- velOping mines; nor does it include the cost of developing subsidiary in dustries. without which shale-oil in dustry could not exist.
 Oil shale is a compact, laminated rock of sedimentary origin, yielding over 33 per cent of ash and contain ing organic matter that gives oil when distilled, but not appreciably when ex- tracted with the ordinary solvents for netroleum. The amount of oil ex- tracted per ton of rock varies consid- erably also
 However, extraction of oil from shades has proved successful in varl- ous countries, the outstanding one being Scotland, where the industry has been developing since 1S60, and where the Investments is in excess of $12,5O0,OOO. Production of bituml- nous materials has been known at least as early as 1649, when, in Shrop- shire, England, "oyle from kind Of stone" was distilled, As early as 1761 also, oils were distilled from bitu- minous or oil-shales for mericinal pur- noses. and in 1915 work in England nroduced oil and ammonia by the dis tillation of coal.