Red Leaf Resources announced that The Utah Division of Water Quality has issued a construction permit for Red Leaf’s EcoShale™ production capsule. As of now, Red Leaf has all required permits to commence construction of a 300,000 barrel commercial demonstration project in Utah.

As quoted in the press release:

Red Leaf’s initial capsule will be the first commercialization of oil shale in North America. This is a significant step for the oil shale industry given that the Green River Formation — which underlies Utah, Wyoming and Colorado — is considered the richest deposit of oil shale resource in the world. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that the formation holds more than 3 trillion barrels of oil, with more than 77 billion barrels of recoverable oil in the Uinta Basin alone.

Red Leaf CEO, Adolph Lechtenberger, said:

Unlike traditional oil shale retorts which require a lot of energy, use a lot of water and produce significant emissions, Red Leaf’s EcoShale™ extraction process was specifically designed to address the environmental challenges associated with oil shale development. There are more than 20 U.S. patents on the EcoShale™ technology, which extracts oil with lower energy consumption, lower emissions, lower water use and less environmental impact than any oil shale technology deployed in the world today.

Click here to read the Red Leaf Resources press release