U.S Government Offers Energy Companies Testing Acreage for Oil Shale

With as much as 800 billion barrels of oil at stake, government officials have offered energy companies the chance to test whether oil shale production can be done profitably.

The states of Colorado, Wyoming and Utah are the focus of the initiative, where much of the oil shale is on public lands.

What the Bureau of Land Management is offering is plots no larger than 640 acres to test the process on, which entails heating the rocks to recover the oil.

As usual, radical environmental groups are threatening to sue if things go forward.

There are approximately 1.9 million acres relevant in the three states to the proposal.

Just this U.S. resource alone holds over 5 times the proven reserves of Saudi Arabia.