The Rio Blanco Oil Shale Company was an American

shale oil extraction Shale oil extraction is an industrial process for unconventional oil production. This process converts kerogen in oil shale into shale oil by pyrolysis, hydrogenation, or thermal dissolution. The resultant shale oil is used as fuel oil or up ...

technology research and development company. The company was established as a general partnership of

Gulf Oil Gulf Oil was a major global oil company in operation from 1901 to 1985. The eighth-largest American manufacturing company in 1941 and the ninth-largest in 1979, Gulf Oil was one of the so-called Seven Sisters oil companies. Prior to its merger ...

(now part of

Chevron Corporation Chevron Corporation is an American multinational energy corporation. The second-largest direct descendant of Standard Oil, and originally known as the Standard Oil Company of California (shortened to Socal or CalSo), it is headquartered in S ...

) and Standard Oil of Indiana (now part of BP). It was named after the

Rio Blanco County, Colorado Rio Blanco County is a county located in the U.S. state of Colorado. As of the 2020 census, the population was 6,529. The county seat is Meeker. The name of the county is the Spanish language name for the White River which runs through it. H ...

, the location of the company's

oil shale Oil shale is an organic-rich fine-grained sedimentary rock containing kerogen (a solid mixture of organic chemical compounds) from which liquid hydrocarbons can be produced. In addition to kerogen, general composition of oil shales constitute ...

tract. The Rio Blanco Oil Shale Company was established in 1974. In 1974, it won a bid for Federal Oil Shale Lease C-a in the Rio Blanco County. In 1977, the company started preparations to demonstrate its modified '' in-situ'' extraction process. The demonstration program included construction of two ''in-situ'' retorts using company-developed techniques for rubbling and ignition of the oil shale deposit, and operation the process through surface drill holes. The mining and blasting (3 simultaneous, underground, nuclear explosions ) used in this process created a bed with close to 40%

porosity Porosity or void fraction is a measure of the void (i.e. "empty") spaces in a material, and is a fraction of the volume of voids over the total volume, between 0 and 1, or as a percentage between 0% and 100%. Strictly speaking, some tests measure ...

. This enabled to retort the chimney at a substantially faster rate achieving higher oil yields. The first retort ignited in October 1980 and the second one in June 1981. The demonstration achieved an average oil yield of 68% of Fischer Assay. The demonstration program cost $132 million. Later the company acquired the modified in-situ technology developed by Occidental Petroleum. The major difference between the two technologies lay in methods for rubblizing and fractioning of the shale deposit. The company also obtained a license for using the Lurgi-Ruhrgas process. In 1985, Amoco (former Standard Oil of Indiana) took control over the company acquiring Gulf Oil's take from the Chevron Corporation. In the same year, the company ceased its operations.

References

{{Authority control Defunct oil companies of the United States Oil shale companies of the United States Oil shale in the United States Chevron Corporation Amoco Energy companies established in 1974 Non-renewable resource companies established in 1974 Companies disestablished in 1985

See also

References