Oil Shale Activities at the U.S. Geological Survey

ByRonald C. Johnson, John R. Dyni,

John R. Donnell, and David Ferderer

• The recently passed Energy Policy Act of 2005 contained language within it directing the USGS to conduct a 4 year national oil shale assessment, starting with the Green River Formation and ending with the Devonian oil shales in the eastern US.

• Unfortunately, no money was provided for this task.

Distribution of Oil Shale in CO, UT and WY

Distribution of mineable oil shales of Devonian age in the eastern United States. After Conant and Swanson (1961) and Matthews and others (1980).

Recently completed oil shale work at the USGS

• Established a USGS oil shale web page.• Digitized previously published oil shale

maps, cross sections, assessment reports ect.

• Cooperative project with the Utah Geological Survey.

• Some work related to oil shale has been completed under other projects.

Permanent site

• http://energy.cr.usgs.gov/other/oil_shale/

USGS oil shale publications have been scanned and can be

accessed from the oil shale USGS oil shale web page

Assessment publications that have been digitized into ARCMAP (36 maps total)

• Pitman, J. K., and Johnson, R. C., 1978, Isopach, structure contour, and resource maps of the Mahogany oil-shale zone, Piceance Creek Basin, Colorado: U.S. Geological Survey Miscellaneous Field Investigations Map (MF-958).

• Pitman, J. K., 1979, Isopach, structure contour, and resource maps of the R-6 oil-shale zone, Piceance Creek Basin, Colorado: U.S. Geological Survey Miscellaneous Field Investigations Map MF-1069.

• Pitman, J. K., Wahl Pierce, Frances, and Grundy, W. D., 1989, Thickness, oil-yield, and kriged resource estimates for the Eocene Green River Formation, Piceance Creek Basin, Colorado: U.S. Geological Survey Oil and Gas Investigations Map OC-132.

Structure contour map on the top of the Mahogany zone (from Pitman and Johnson, 1978)

Isopach map of the Mahogany oil shale zone (from Pitman and Johnson, 1978)

Oil yield for the Mahogany zone in gallons per ton (from Pitman and Johnson (1978)

Fischer assays of oil-shale drill cores and rotarycuttings from the Piceance Creek Basin, Colorado

• by• John R. Dyni• U.S. Geological Survey• Denver, Colorado• Open-File Report 98-483• Prepared in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Energy• This report is preliminary and has not been reviewed for

conformity with U.S. Geological Survey editorial standards (or with the North American Stratigraphic Code). Any use of trade, product, or firm names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.

• 1998

• The size of this database is 22.8 megabytes and contains about 298,500 records divided into 737 sets of assays. Each data set represents analyses from one bore hole. The data are in ASCII format in column-delimited fields for use on a PC computer.

71/2 minute geologic quadrangle maps in oil shale area of

Colorado and Utah have been scanned

64 were from Colorado and 16 are from Utah

Example of a 7 1/2 minute quadrangle map in the PiceanceBasin (Desert Gulch quad., Johnson, 1981)

Chapter 13Depths to Selected

Stratigraphic Horizons in Oiland Gas Wells for Upper Cretaceous and Lower

Tertiary Strata of the Uinta Basin, Utah

By Ronald C. Johnson and Laura N.R. Roberts

2003

Elevation of the Long Point Bed of the Green River Formation (Johnson and Roberts, 2003)

Elevation of the top of the Mahogany oil shale zone (Johnson and Roberts, 2003)

Thickness from top of Mahogany zone to base of Long Point bed (Johnson and Roberts, 2003)

Structure contour map on the top of the Mahogany oil shale zone(modified from Pitman and Johnson (1978), Johnson and Roberts (2003)

Chapter 11Northwest to Southeast Cross

Section ofCretaceous and Lower Tertiary

Rocks Across theEastern Part of the Uinta Basin,

UtahBy Ronald C. Johnson

2003

Chapter 3: History of the Piceance Basin from Latest Cretaceous Through Early Eocene and the Characterization of Lower Tertiary Sandstone ReservoirsRonald C. Johnson and Romeo M. Flores

Johnson (2003)

Johnson (2003)

Johnson (2003)

Johnson (1985)

On-going and future work at the USGS

• Prepare attributed and georeferenceddigital data layers and ArcGIS maps showing the geographic extent and distribution of oil shale deposits in the Green River Formation in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming.

• These data layers and maps shall show locations of all known oil shale core holes and drillholes with assay information (about 2,000)

• Each core hole location shall be attributed and hyperlinked utilizing GIS technology to compilations of known information for the respective core hole including:

• 1) Name and location• 2) USGS number designation• 3) Present storage location of core, if known, and

availability of the core for study• 4) types of data collected on the core and where it was

published• 5) a list of depths to key stratigraphic markers and where

the picks were published• 6) types of geophysical logs available.

Collaboration Tasks with the Utah Geological Survey Include:

• Developing a core location database. • Assembling digital Fischer assay files and database. • Preparing lithologic and geophysical logs images. • Preparing stratigraphic cross sections for Utah oil shale

lands. • Creating GIS base maps of Fischer-assay data. • Compiling oil shale bibliographic references ( Green

River Basin, Eastern U.S., and International). • Index of oil shale cores and samples at the Core

Research Center and Anvil Points mine, northwest Colorado.

Oil shale core stored at the Anvil Points mine will be shipped to the core library at the Denver Federal

Center

Anvil Points Mine about 1950 (U.S Bureau of Mines)

Portal of the Anvil Points mine

U.S. Geological Survey oil shale core storage facility, Anvil Points mine

Green River Formation at Anvil Points

Eleven hundred gas wells will be drilled on the Roan Plateau

Publish unpublished report on the Elko oil shales of Nevada

Remains of Catlin oil shale retort today (Elko Rose Garden Association)

Outcrops of Eocene Elko Formation, northeast Nevada

Report on Elko oil shales, Nevada

91-NY-27-H, typical rich non-laminated (blebby) Elko oil shale

Reassess oil shale of the Green River Formation

The presence of saline minerals can affect oil shale development,

particularly in-site retorting

Most common saline mineralsfound in Green River Formation,

Piceance Basin:

• Nahcolite: HNaCO3 • Dawsonite: NaAl(OH)2CO3• Halite: NaCl

• Nahcolite and Dawsonite will decompose at temperatures well below those needed for retorting

Area with nahcoliteshown in pink, area with halite shown in blue (from Dyni, 1974; Beard and others, , 1974)

Average weight % nahcolite in saline section (Beard and others, 1974)

In-place shale oil resources in the Piceance Creek Basin in billions of barrels per township. Total is 1.007 trillion barrels. (adapted from Pitman and others, 1989, table 1)

The area with nahcolite and halite is also the area with the greatest oil shale resources

Nahcolite and halite are largely confined to the Piceance Basin

Model for deposition of deposition of nahcolite and halite in just the Piceance Basin part of Lake Uinta (Dyni, 1987)

Drill core showing coarse crystalline scattered aggregates of nahcolite in high-grade oil shale (Dyni, 1987)

Nahcolite vugs in oil shale from Superior mine, northern Piceance Basin

Drill core of interbedded crystalline white nahcolite with dark-colored oil-shale layers (Dyni, 1987)

Alternating beds of halite (partially disolved) and nahcolite (Dyni, 1987)

One halite and nahcolite bed is as much as 63 ft thick

R. C. Johnson, unpub.

Eos-3.jpg

The Fischer Assay method traditionally used to assess oil

shale is outdated

• The amounts of individual gases –including hydrocarbons, hydrogen, and carbon dioxide – are not normally determined but are reported collectively as “gas plus loss.”

• There are no commercial labs in the country that can run large numbers of Fischer assays.

• It would be useful to develop a simple and reliable assay method for determining the energy potential of an oil shale which would include the total heat energy, and the amounts of oil, water, combustible gases including hydrogen,and char in sample residue (Dyni, 2003).

Quite from Dyni (2003)• The Fischer assay method does not necessarily

indicate the maximum amount of oil that can be produced by a given oil shale. Some retorting methods, such as the Tosco II process, are known to yield in excess of 100 % of the yield reported by Fischer assay. In fact, special methods of retorting, such as the Hytort process, can increase oil yields of some oil shales by as much as 300 to 400 % of the Fischer assay yield. (Schora and others, 1983;Dyni, Anders, and Rex, 1990).

Comparrison between hydrocarbons generated during hydrous and anhydrous reactions at 350 degrees C for 72 hours

(Lewan, 1992)Hydrous: Gas generated: 1.68%Expelled oil: 4.15%Bitumen extract: 5.71%Total: 11.54%

AnhydrousGas generated: 2.40%Expelled oil: 0.00%Bitumen extract: 3.30%Total: 5.70%

• Any new method developed to assess oil shale must produce results that have a consistent relationship with results from the Fischer Assay method.

Hydrous pyrolysis apparatus at the USGS organic geochemistry lab in Denver Colorado

Future oil shale studies at the USGS

• Assess oil shale intervals in Utah, Colorado and Wyoming that were not adequately assessed previously.

• Develop a modern method to assess oil shale that is consistently comparable with the Fischer assay method

• Divide oil shale into various facies (i.e. nahcolitebearing, halite bearing, bedded nahcolite vsnahcolite aggregates, illitic vs dolomitic oil shale).

• Re-assess oil shale by facies. (a sort of oil shale availability study)