Abstract
Oil shale is a potential energy resource of the future, but full realization of this potential requires the development of technology and land-ownership patterns that permit efficient mining operations. Therefore, the policy of the Department of Interior has been to encourage oil-shale development through a program of land exchanges designed to consolidate land-ownership patterns. The first such proposals for exchange were submitted by the Colony Development Operation and the Superior Oil Co. and are now being considered. The U.S. Geological Survey and the Bureau of Land Management procedures to evaluate exchange proposals include a mineral and mining evaluation by the U.S. Geological Survey.
The oil-shale mineral and mining evaluation includes a determination of the total in-place resource, definition of minable intervals, and calculation of the in-place and recoverable mining interval resources for both the offered and selected lands involved in a proposed exchange. The evaluation is tailored to the geology and hydrology of each site, as illustrated by a description of the land-exchange evaluations for Colony Development Operation and Superior Oil Co.
