Questerre Energy Corporation ("Questerre" or the "Company") (TSX:QEC)(OSLO:QEC) is pleased to announce that its partner, Red Leaf Resources Inc. ("Red Leaf"), reported that it has cleared a major regulatory hurdle and will soon launch the first commercial-scale oil shale production in North America in decades.
Michael Binnion, President and Chief Executive Officer of Questerre, commented, "We are very pleased that Red Leaf has secured the necessary regulatory approvals to begin field work for their first commercial scale capsule. This is a first. We are very pleased with the work done to achieve it."
Red Leaf reported that the Utah Division of Water Quality today issued a Groundwater Discharge Permit to Red Leaf, which the company sought despite not producing any discharge water. In 2012, Red Leaf received a Large Mining Operation permit from the Utah Division of Oil, Gas & Mining, contingent upon issuance of the discharge permit.
"We are pleased to finally have the major permits required to move forward with construction of our commercial demonstration project, which will produce more than 300,000 barrels of oil and prove our clean oil shale technology works on a large scale," said Red Leaf Chief Executive Officer, Adolph Lechtenberger. In 2009, Red Leaf successfully completed a pilot project on its lease holdings in Eastern Utah, from which it successfully produced more than 300 barrels of oil.
Red Leaf currently holds oil shale leases on school trust lands in Utah, which will be developed under a joint venture with the French energy conglomerate Total S.A. Red Leaf has additional oil shale leases on land leased in Wyoming, which will be developed under a joint venture with Questerre.
"Red Leaf has more than 20 U.S. patents for our EcoShale(TM) technology, which extracts oil with lower energy consumption, lower emissions, lower water use and less environmental impact than any oil shale technology deployed in the world today." Lechtenberger continued, "The EcoShale(TM) process was specifically designed to address traditional environmental challenges of oil shale production."
"Not only do we have less environmental impact, our oil is of much higher quality than traditional oil shale production, equal to or better than the industry benchmark of light sweet West Texas Intermediate crude," said Lechtenberger.
