• Wednesday, 16 May, 2012

US regulators going slow on oil shale

A road sign warns drivers to slow down for the endangered Cumberland land snails (Meridolum corneovirens) crossing the road at Mount Annan near Sydney on June 26, 2011. The snail feeds on fungi (unlike common garden snails which eat plants) and lives in the rapidly disappearing woodland around Sydney. AFP PHOTO / Torsten BLACKWOOD

Whoa, Nellie: US regulators want a measured approach to development and further study of water use

TORSTEN BLACKWOOD

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By News Wires

 03 February 2012 23:20 GMT

The Obama administration scaled back plans Friday to allow companies to search for hard-to-extract oil deposits on federal land.

The Department of Interior released a draft plan for making about 460,000 acres in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming available for activities related to oil shale, revising a Bush administration plan to open up 2 million acres, Dow Jones reported.

The new plan also calls for oil shale research and development rather than commercial-scale operations, as the previous administration had proposed.

"Because there are still many unanswered questions about the technology, water use, and impacts of potential commercial-scale oil shale development, we are proposing a prudent and orderly approach that could facilitate significant improvements to technology needed for commercial-scale activity," Bob Abbey, director of the department's Bureau of Land Management, said according to the news wire.

Friday's draft plan also outlines several alternatives, but the department said the scaled-back approach was "preferred."

Oil shale is a rock that contains the building blocks of petroleum, and the US has the world's largest deposits. Oil companies have been searching for economic ways to unlock the valuable compounds for decades, so far without sustained success.

The Bush administration's 2008 plan was challenged in court, and the Obama administration agreed to revise it.

Friday's announcement drew swift criticism from Representative Doc Hastings, the Washington Republican who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee.

The proposed plan would "close over a million acres of federal land to oil shale development," he said.

House Republicans have attached a bill paving the way for oil shale development to a larger piece of legislation on transportation infrastructure. That bill would reinstate the 2008 plan and require that commercial lease sales be held within six months.

Skeptics are concerned oil shale extraction can require large amounts of water.

"We already face a shortage of water here that threatens farmers and ranchers and we simply cannot gamble away our water on the speculation for oil shale," said Bill Midcap, director of energy issues for the Rocky Mountain Farmer's Union. "We support the [Obama administration's] 'go slow' approach."

The administration also said the US Geological Survey would begin an analysis of water resources in the region to help understand the impact of oil shale extraction on water.

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08.05.2012 -  20th Middle East Petroleum & Gas Conference (MPGC 2012)

MPGC 2012 will be held from 6-8 May and is returning to Bahrain again, on the occasion of its 20th Anniversary. The conference will be held under the Patronage of His Excellency Dr. Abdul Hussain bin Ali Mirza, Minister of Energy-Chairman of National Oil & Gas Authority, Kingdom of Bahrain and with National Oil & Gas Authority (NOGA) & The Bahrain Petroleum Company (Bapco) as hosts.
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