API comments on Salazar oil shale announcement

Cathy Landry | 202.682.8122 | landryc@api.org

WASHINGTON, October 20, 2009 - American Petroleum Institute issued the following statement on the announcement today by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to issue a second round of oil shale research and development leases with vastly diminished potential commercial acreage:

“Secretary Salazar’s decision to resume the second round of research and development leases is a positive step in the process of developing the innovation and technology needed to bring production from the nation’s vast oil shale resources to American consumers.

“We are concerned, however, with some of the new second-round lease terms, specifically the decision to reduce by 87 percent the total potential commercial lease size. Slashing the size of the potential commercial lease diminishes the incentives for investment and ignores the enormous up-front costs and risks undertaken to develop these technologically complex resources.

“Oil shale deposits in the Green River formation in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah hold an estimated 800 billion barrels of recoverable resources, which, if commercially viable, could bolster America's energy security, provide additional U.S. jobs and bring in much-needed government revenue.”