With oil prices near records levels and Utah sitting on top of huge reserves of untapped crude in the form of oil sands, a Nevada-based company is making a play to be among the first to process it.

"In the Vernal area, we've got a lot of support (for our technology)," said Frank Glinton, chairman of Black Sands Energy Corporation. "We'd like to work here with the state because they've been very supportive."

Glinton gave a presentation of how it all might come about to a modest audience including state and municipal leaders from around the state at the Fort Douglas Officers Club on Tuesday.

Black Sands, along with its partner Nevtah Capital Management Corporation, has funded the development of a patented process that extracts crude oil from oil sand (also called tar sand). Glinton said not only does the technology separate oil from sand, but it does so without emitting any greenhouse gases making it environmentally friendly.

"Yes, the technology is as good as we're saying it is," Glinton said.

Black Sands and Nevtah would like to construct a facility near Utah's Asphalt Ridge by April 2008. Once up and running he said the first commercial operation could produce up to 2,500 barrels of crude oil per day with the state receiving an eight-percent royalty on the sale of each barrel.

"In simple terms, the process consists of steps of the wash, rinse and dry," said Paul Wagner, scientist and inventor of the patented extraction system. "It's not a whole lot different than a dry cleaning process."

Wagner said the process uses solvents and heat to clean or extract the oil from the sand. The oil then flows from the extraction chamber into a barrel where it is stored, while the sand drops to the bottom of the rinse chamber.

The solvent, now containing a high concentration of oil, moves to a separation column. Once there, the solvent is heated and turns into a gas vapor, which rises and moves to a condenser chamber where it is cooled and re-liquefied back to its original form.

The cleansed solvent is then reused to extract more oil. What is left in the separation column is crude oil. The sand is dried and exits the system as clean, dry sand, which is eventually replaced back into earth.

Wagner said he is currently working on the development of the pilot processor and could not say definitively when the system will be ready for commercial use.

"My view as a scientist is that I do not like to release information without absolute certainty," Wagner said. "Right now, we're in the process of running pilot tests."

But Glinton said he's confident the system will be up and running by next spring.

As for the state, officials are still looking into the viability of the oil sand extraction process.

"We have the same interest with (Black Sand and Nevtah) that we have with other companies that are developing oil resources in Utah," said John Baza, director of the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining.

Baza added it may be some time before such a project would actually produce the 2,500 barrels of oil the developers claim.

"I think they would start small and ramp up," he said. "It would really just depend on how serious they are."

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