Oil Shale, 808 Billion Barrels Recoverable

808 Billion barrels, as a comparison, that's about FOUR times the reserves of Saudi Arabia ... The U.S. Department of the Interior(DOI) has released their finding about oil shale, and it's huge ... The DOI claim 808 Billion Barrels of oil are recoverable from the oil shales. According to the DOI --

The Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management today published proposed regulations to establish a commercial oil shale program that could result in the addition of up to 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil from lands in the western United States.

In keeping with the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920, the BLM is proposing regulations that would provide the critical “rules of the road” on which private investors will rely in determining whether to make future financial commitments to prospective oil shale projects.

“As Americans pay more than $4 for a gallon of gasoline and watch energy prices continue to climb higher and higher, we need to be doing more to develop our own energy here at home, through resources such as oil shale,” said Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne. “Instead, I find it ironic that we are asking countries halfway around the world to produce more for us.”

Oil shale is a fine-grained sedimentary rock containing organic matter from which oil may be produced. The regulations would provide for a thoughtful, phased approach to oil shale development on public lands in the West. Commercial development of oil shale will not begin until it is technologically viable, which is not expected for several years.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the U.S. holds more than half of the world’s oil shale resources.

The deposits are located in the "Green River Formation -- The largest known deposits of oil shale are located in a 16,000-square mile area in the Green River formation in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. Shale formations in that area hold the equivalent of up to 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil. Federal lands comprise 72 percent of the total surface of oil shale acreage in the Green River formation.

The regulations are coming out soon, there will be a 60 day public comment period, then they will be finalized. The Oil Shale Regulation on the electronic desk of the Federal Register today is at
http://federalregister.gov/OFRUpload/OFRData/2008-16275_PI.pdf