Working Paper on Candidate Mining Sites for Surface Mining of Western Oil Shales

摘要

This report describes the selection of candidate surface mining sites for the development of oil shale resources in the western United States. The purpose of this study is to input the various scenarios into an economic mine model developed for underground oil shale mines in an earlier project. Site selection was a three-phase effort. Phase I consisted of a thorough review of available resource data, which resulted in a definition of surface mineable areas. Phase II was a detailed investigation of the regions identified in the initial phase. The end result of this task was a list of potential sites having favorable overburden, grade, shale thickness, and topography values. Phase III identified those sites from which a wide range of site specific parameters can be obtained for mine design and model testing purposes. This report describes the procedures used to obtain the candidate mining scenarios. Section 2.0 discusses the methodology used to determine candidate mining scenarios. Section 3.0 presents a more detailed review of the western oil shale resources and develops the rationale used in selecting candidate sites. 1 ref., 5 figs., 1 tab. (ERA citation 11:022035)