Federal Government Picks Contenders for Oil-Shale Development

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management narrowed the field of oil companies hoping to exploit vast oil-shale reserves in Utah and Colorado, government officials said Monday.

In a second elimination round, Exxon Mobil Corp. and a tiny Utah company, Oil-Tech Inc., were knocked out of the running for research and development leases to work 160-acre parcels of BLM land.
Santa Barbara News-Press