Uintah may fuel Utah's economy

That potential is luring venture capitalists like "girls to the best-looking boy in town" to Oil Tech, although no proposal has been accepted. Ideally, however, they would like to build 24 bigger units on the one acre of land, which is owned by the State Institutional Trust Lands Administration, and produce upwards of 1,000 barrels per day.

Throughout the Uinta Basin are hundreds of oil rigs and natural gas wells — and, according to the Bureau of Land Management, more than 3,000 more that could be opened in coming years — that are becoming increasingly valuable as oil prices climb above $50 a barrel, Huntsman said. What there is not enough of are the other components, especially skilled workers from the local area or the ability to train those workers.

If the energy boom does happen as he expects, then the demand for training will follow suit. To that end, he said that in his next budget he will most likely ask for money to expand the Uinta Basin Applied Technology Center.

"You need something that will pull people into the opportunities and give them a chance to receive more education," Huntsman said. "With this happening, we need to make sure we have a quality technical education."

Huntsman also wants to look at returning a large portion of the 6.3 percent energy severance tax, which currently goes into the state's general fund, to the Uinta Basin. Last year, almost 80 percent of the more than $20 million in severance tax monies came from basin energy business.

"We are really responsible for the environment that this takes place in — the economic, the taxes, and regulatory environments," Huntsman said. "That's something which we need to discuss."

What state leaders should not do if they want to continue energy exploration in the Uinta Basin is raise taxes, said Russell Griffin, a geologist with Questar, during a Saturday morning presentation at the company's Red Wash, Uinta County, office. With many of the "easy" oil reservoirs tapped, companies are having to drill more wells and try new drilling approaches to pull out the same amount of oil they could get with a basic vertical rig in the 1980s.

"We're operating on a very tight margin," Griffin said. "If we were to see a tax increase, that could really decrease investments."

While Saturday's tour was extensive — the officials covered well over 100 miles in their bus — and comprehensive, there was little discussion about environmental protection, nor were there any representatives of environmental groups. Despite that, Huntsman did stress that would need to be a major part of the discussion.

"We need to consider what kind of a legacy we're leaving our children," he said.

Also, amidst all of the optimism, he understood that there may be a number of people in the area who approach the possibility of an energy boom with caution. Because of that, he wants the state to be involved with helping map out the long-term future.

"People here feel the excitement, they see the private planes flying into the airport, but they are cautioned by experience," he said. "They don't want to be left hanging in five years."

Bill Johnson, executive director of economic development for Uintah County, said that the trip by Huntsman would help everyone take a big step forward.

"He can't do anything for us if he doesn't know what's here," Johnson said. "This is an exploratory trip to see what we need, what we have and what we lack."

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E-mail: jloftin@desnews.com