Recovery of bitumen from oil-impregnated sandstone deposits of Utah

Utah contains at least 26 billion barrels of potential oil as bitumen in oil-impregnated sandstone (tar sand) deposits. As shown in this paper, these tar sands are significantly different in physical and chemical properties from commercially developed Canadian tar sands. These differences prevent direct adaptation of existing technology and necessitate a substantial, new research effort before development of this United States energy resource can be realized. Research is now underway to study methods for recovering the bitumen from the sands and to upgrade the bitumen to a more valuable fuel product. Both near-ambient extraction and high-temperature retorting techniques are being explored. Preliminary data on these recovery studies are included in this paper.