Western US commercial oil shale leasing still years away Even with most forecast showing growing energy needs in the world, leasing of US federal controlled land in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming for commercial oil shale development may still be many years away, as discussed Oct. 13 at the 28th Oil Shale Symposium at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colo. Terry O'Conner, with Shell Unconventional Oil, Denver, explained the current progress in leasing oil shale lands administered by the US Bureau of Land Management. He said federal law and regulations have two separate paths for leasing these lands. One path is with research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) leases with the right to expand into a preference right lease (PRL). The other path is commercial leasing. BLM has issued six RD&D leases, five in Colorado and one in Utah. Shell obtained three of these leases. O'Conner said Shell plans to demonstrate three different types of technologies on these leases but will not start work on them until it obtains results from its Mahogany pilot that is on a private lease possibly by yearend 2009 or in 2010. On the Mahogany project Shell uses a situ conversion process that relies on a freeze curtain to prevent ground water contamination....