On October 5, 2015, Stites & Associates, LLC presented a summary of the new eBook, Oil Shale: Treasure Trove or Pandora’s Box? for the 35th Oil Shale Symposium in Salt Lake City, Utah. All three authors, Ron Stites, Lee Yuan Ming and Matthew James were present and spoke, giving their perspective on the oil shale industry. Their advice to the oil shale industry was to treat the US Citizen as a Mineral Owner and look for ways to partner with them to help balance the many resource issues. If that is done the authors feel that good choices can be made and oil shale developed in a responsible way.
In general, the authors believe that the industry must start slowly and deal with the many financial, technical and resource risks. Once these risks can be assessed from historical data, it is much more likely that larger projects will be approved and infrastructure needs met in prudent ways. Furthermore, the authors have looked at the financial issues and believe that smaller operations than have been proposed in the past are economically feasible. Meeting financial criteria will be a challenge, especially where there are significant technical risks to be added to existing business risks. Nevertheless, once an industry has been established, business risks will drop and technological development will make better sense.
The summary was met with a significant amount of support. Many participants expressed their concurrence in private conversations. This is, of course, a change in approach that may take some time before it is fully embraced. Nevertheless, the openness to the concept was quite encouraging.
Left to Right: Ron Stites, Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox, Matthew James, Lee Yuan Ming
Especially encouraging were the kind words given to us after our presentation by Spencer Cox, the Lt. Governor of Utah (pictured above with the authors). We were also pleasantly surprised by the interview by Joi O’Donoghue published in the “Deseret News.” That article on that interview is published at: http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865638333/Symposium-speaker-Oil-shale-not-environmental-Armargeddon.html .
Of course, the authors could only give an overview of all that was in their eBook. The eBook is an attempt to give a broad perspective on oil shale and educate the concerned US Citizen on technical, regulatory and financial issues surrounding this complex topic. The authors go into considerable depth, including an explanation of how to do simple financial modeling. An interactive, web-based model is supplied with some typical examples. Those interested in understanding oil shale in the US are encouraged to get the eBook from Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B013PSC0VU . This is in Kindle format, but is best viewed by downloading the free Kindle app on a PC. This allows for viewing the charts and graphs in color and that can be very helpful. For instructions on how to read the eBook without a Kindle visit: http://www.tek-dev.net/Kindle-Instructions .
Stites & Associates, LLC, is a group of technical professionals who work with clients to improve laboratory performance and evaluate and improve technology by applying good management judgment based on objective evidence and sound scientific thinking. For more information see: www.tek-dev.net.
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