Is shale oil turning viable?

Oil prices peaked at a 13-year high Wednesday — and experts say trends like that could make Utah's high-cost and high-risk shale oil reserves a viable fuel resource for the future. Again.

"You guys could be a hot little number again, soon," said Larry Nation of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists.

The Energy Department reported that oil reached $40.77 a barrel in New York, the highest recorded price since Oct. 12, 1990, when Iraqi troops occupied Kuwait. Crude oil prices slid back down to $38.93 a barrel after Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi called on OPEC to increase output quotas by at least 6.4 percent.

"It looks like the pricing of oil is on another level, and on another tier, which means there is a whole other level of product that is now going to be economically smart to begin to produce," said Nation, specifically referring to Utah's vast reserves of shale oil.

Nation tempers his outlook, however, with the fact that tapping into Utah's oil shale remains a pricey proposition that few might be willing to risk.

"It's really not a reserve until you can afford" to get the oil out, Nation said. "We're certainly going to have to pay for it. The infrastructure doesn't pop up overnight."

Previous attempts to extract oil from Utah's shale came to naught. During the 1973 OPEC embargo, oil prices surged. Cars lined up for blocks at service stations, waiting to gas up on their designated day.

And it was during that frenzy that a rush to find new fuel sources was born. Shale oil, tar sands, coal liquefaction — anything to rescue American pocketbooks. Oil companies invested millions of dollars to develop shale oil in Utah, Wyoming and Colorado.

The Green River Formation, a geologic swath stretching into Utah, Colorado and Wyoming, contains an estimated 1.5 trillion barrels of oil, according to the American Association of Petroleum Geologists. But that oil is locked in shale and can be recovered only when the rock is heated to high temperatures.

Some experts say the technology to extract oil from shale remains too expensive and the prospects are too risky when oil prices, while increasing, are still volatile.

"No one is going to invest in the infrastructure necessary when the oil price could collapse to $10 a barrel," said David Deming, associate professor of geosciences at the University of Oklahoma. "There are still bitter memories."