Two Interns from Singapore, Lee Yuan Ming and Matthew James came to Denver, Colorado to study the Oil Shale Industry. They had four additional colleagues from Singapore who were in the Berkeley, CA area working on Oil Shale related projects. These were Shao Ying Lam, Lee Sey Chee, Tey Hui Jie and Grayson Wen Guo. Lee, Matthew and I began working on a trip to visit Oil Shale Country (western Colorado and eastern Utah). As it progressed, we realized that this would be a great way for the other Intern in CA to learn quickly about Oil Shale. Hence, there developed a quest-like mission to try to see everything there was to see related to Oil Shale in just a few days. The four from Berkeley arrived on a Thursday. This blog chronicles some of the highlights of the Road Trip.
As is customary, before beginning such a quest, there had to be a dinner – just in case it turned out to be a Last Supper. Pictured below was dinning at chez Stites with all the Interns on Thursday night. Pictured left to right were Sey, Shao, Tey, Barb Stites, Ron Stites, Lee and Wen. Not pictured is Matthew who is taking the picture:
Day 1:
On the Road! Our travels took us to such notable places as Rifle, Glenwood Springs and Grand Junction in Colorado. Then were we off to hot spots like Green River, Dragon and Salt Lake City in Utah. And no trip to the west would be complete without hitting Rock Springs and Laramie in Wyoming. Not only were we learning about Oil Shale and Oil and Gas technology, we were learning about Western American culture (or lack thereof).
Day One was at Shale Tech. The first photo below was Justin Bilyeu explaining the Shale Tech technology to the Interns from Singapore (L to R Sey, Shao, Lee, Tey, Justin). The second photo was Justin showing us Colorado Oil Shale. What he held in his hand was the size is approximately correct for the Paraho II Process.
The picture below was of the whole crew at the end of the Shale Tech visit. Pictured below (L to R) were Justin, Shao, Wen, Lee, Sey, Ron, Tey, Matt). Thanks so much thanks to Justin for an informative lecture and tour.
We took lunch time the first day of the Road Trip at a famous Rifle landmark. Anyone visiting Rifle cannot miss the cultural icon...The Shooters Cafe (see:http://www.shootersgrillofrifle.com/ ). Pictured below was the entire group at lunch at Shooters. The picture was "shot" by one of the pistol packing waitresses. No one was hurt. The second pic is actually from The Shooters Cafe website...check it out....
The afternoon of the first day of the Road Trip included an educational side trip to the Glenwood Springs Train Museum. The first pic shows Matthew intently studying the nuances of steam energy. The evening of the first day of the Road Trip included a discussion and dinner at Kevin Biehle's house (a former Shale Tech Exec). Along with nearly 2.5 hours of discussion about the financial and operational world of Oil Shale with Kevin, Elizabeth provided us a wonderful dinner and the Biehle kids served and entertained us. This was a great evening of fun and learning. The second pic is of our whole crew with Mount Sopris in the background. The adults pictured are (second row L to R) Sey, Kevin, Wen, Ron, Lee, Shao, Sey, Matthew. Elizabeth is second from the right in the front row.
Day 2:
The second day of the Road Trip (Saturday) was mostly a trip to Colorado National Monument in Grand Junction. It was a perfect day with plenty of sun and just a few clouds in the afternoon to keep the heat down. This first set of photos is from Rim Road...
Then we took a hike to the Devil's Kitchen. This was still the second day of the Road Trip. A very long day....
By the evening of the second day of the Road Trip we were exhausted and hungry. We tried to find a Korean restaurant in Grand Junction that I had gone to several years ago. It had closed. We accidentally found an Asian restaurant run by an elderly man from Malaysia. As it turns out, several of the Interns are actually from Malaysia. They say they are from Singapore because that is where there school is, it is a simpler story and many Malaysians have left Malaysia to seek economic opportunity. This was the same story for the restaurant owner. He had left Malaysia years ago for many of the same reasons. We had a great time. The food was very good and there was a lot of it. It was very entertaining to watch the Interns and "The Boss" (more or less translation of the Chinese word of endearment for an elderly man) banter back and forth. He scolded them (in jest) for hiding their Malaysian heritage. It was all great fun....
Day 3:
Day three of the Road Trip was to Oil Shale and Oil and Gas Country. That is western Colorado and Eastern Utah. We wanted to see some of the Oil Shale sites in Utah and compare them to what oil and gas operations look like. As with most trips, it not a real adventure until your travel plans go awry. For us it was on the way to the Dragon, Utah, when...
This is what we called "Quandary Junction," where the “road” to Dragon ended at private property. What follows are classic pics of new versus old tech, young versus old, guys versus gals. It is a wonder that we every found our way. Actually it was a lot of fun. The dynamics of cross cultural/generational problem solving could make a nice case study. Some of the pics are priceless....
Later on Day Three of the Road Trip we managed to get our bearings and get back on the road from "Quandary Junction". We took a side trip to look at local oil and gas production equipment and methods....
Still on Day three of the Road Trip we finally arrived in Oil Shale Country. We stoppe by the Enefit site near Dragon, Utah, an old mining ghost town. Enefit had given us permission to look at their “box cut” test site. Enefit is one of just a handful of companies who continue to make progress on commercializing Oil Shale in the US. Notice the lush vegetation (NOT).....
Also on Day three we search for a specific Oil Shale property for one of our sponsors. The captions below should read, “Are we there yet?”...
Later in Day three Wen, Matt and Ron pressed on in search of Dragon, Utah, a ghost town where Gilsonite (a bitumen containing rock) was mined. It is claimed that this is the only area in the world with bitumen containing rock...I read it on the Internet so it must be true...pictured below is my faithful sidekick Wen at his best....
Finally on Day three...Eureka! (sort of)...we found Dragon, Utah...even the sign is played out....
As the sun set on Day three we were on the road to Salt Lake City. We passed a "modern" Gilsonite operation at Bonanza, Utah, We drove to SLC late that night. It was the end of a very long day....
Day 4:
Fourth day of the Road Trip found us at a meeting with the Institute for Clean & Secure Energy at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, UT. This was a great discussion that lasted about 4 hours. We covered the chemistry of oil shale, the geology of oil shale, the current policy and regulatory issues in oil shale, the economics of oil shale production and some of the newest research that is available for supporting oil shale production. Many thanks to especially Dr. Jennifer Spinti for setting up this informative meeting and all the participants that prepared so thoroughly for this meeting. It would have been impossible to cover so much ground without previous hard work....
The evening of Day 4 Road Trip found us visiting sites in Salt Lake City. It was a great opportunity to talk about cultural differences and a different aspect of the cultural history of the western US, especially a visit to Temple Square in Salt Lake City. The second picture is of me taking a picture of the Temple as it was just being illuminated. It illustrates the universal theme of the younger generation poking good-natured fun at the strange ways of the older generation....
Day 5:
Day 5 of the Road Trip was a visit to the Salt Lake City office Red Leaf. This is another of the very few Oil Shale companies persisting in development. It that looks like they might actually do a commercial or near commercial size project in the US in the next few years. There are at least 2 other companies who seem to be continuing on with significant efforts, but Red Leaf seems to be the most advanced right now. Much thanks to Jeff Hartley for setting up the meeting and sharing with us his technology and company plans. The rest of the day was spent in heading back to the Denver area via I-80 through Wyoming. Except for a few antelope and a wind turbine here or there, there just wasn't much to show...
Day 6:
Day 6 of the Road Trip was a meeting at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado. There we met with Dr. Jeremy Boak, the premier academic authority in Colorado for Oil Shale. We discussed a lot of our observations with Jeremy and he gave us great insight into how this all might work together....
This concluded our Road Trip. We had traveled about 1500 miles in 5 days with one extra day in Golden. We learned a lot about the landscape, the technologies, the business plans and the political constraints surrounding Oil Shale development. Now we will try to make sense of it and put together a paper for the Oil Shale Symposium in October, 2015. We also hope to pull together our findings in an eBook to be published on Amazon later this year. Stay tuned for the conclusions to this fact finding mission....