Oil Shale, The Topic of Discussion Around The Region

The Bureau of Land Management is holding a public meeting in Cheyenne today. The BLM held previous meetings about oil shale in Utah last week as well as two in Colorado this week. Discussed in the meetings is the topic of the regions oil shale deposits.

During the public meetings, the BLM has been looking into an oil shale plan released by the Bush Administration. According to the plan, 1.9 million acres of public land are potentially available for commercial oil shale development in Wyoming, Colorado and Utah. Another 431,000 acres are available for tar sands leasing and development.

Oil shale resources in the three states is estimated to hold 1.5 trillion barrels of recoverable oil. A number of companies have began researching commercially viable ways to extract oil shale from the deposits. Possible development of oil shale in Wyoming could mean even more money coming into the state.