Government

摘要

In a serious blow to West Coast oil development, federal officials reportedly have cut by 96% the estimated amount of oil in that could be recovered from California's Monterey Shale deposits. The Energy Information Administration says that only 600 million barrels of oil can be extracted with existing technology. Earlier it was thought that 13.7 billion barrels were potentially recoverable. Projections were that an oil boom would bring more than 2 million new jobs to California and add $24 billion annually in tax revenues. The Monterey Shale formation contains about two-thirds of the nation's shale oil reserves. The EIA said the earlier estimate of recoverable oil in 2011 by an independent firm had expected that the deposits could be recovered as easily as those found in shale formations elsewhere. The geology of the Monterey Shale, a 1,750-mile formation, indicates that the oil is found at deeper strata.