Strategic Unconventional Fuels Task Force

Task Force Completes Strategy and Program Plan to Advance Development of U.S. Unconventional Fuels Resources

October 8, 2007 - Washington, D.C.
The Task Force on Strategic Unconventional Fuels, established by the Secretary of Energy under Section 369 (h) of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, has completed an integrated strategy and program plan to coordinate and accelerate the commercial development of strategic unconventional fuels within the United States, including oil shale and tar sands, heavy oil, enhanced oil recovery, and coal-derived liquids.

The integrated plan details proposed program objectives, strategies, key activities, and timelines providing the basis for subsequent program implementation planning.

A three volume report has been transmitted to policymakers for their review and consideration.  These volumes include:

• Volume I: Preparation Strategy, Plan and Recommendations
• Volume II: Resource-Specific and Crosscutting Plans
• Volume III: Resource and Technology Profiles

Task Force Findings:  Declining domestic oil production and rising U.S. demand for oil increase the nation’s dependence on imports of foreign oil.  This growing import dependence represents challenges to the strategic interests of the United States, particularly as global conventional oil production may soon fall short of global demand.

Significant opportunities exist for producing fuels from the nation’s vast unconventional resources, including: oil shale and tar sands, heavy oil, enhanced oil recovery, and coal-derived liquids. Domestic production of fuels from unconventional resources could reduce import dependence and the potential impacts and strategic risks posed by global oil supply and demand trends.

While the Task Force expects that these resources should and will be developed primarily by industry, the report identifies a range of policy options to be considered by Federal, state, and local policy makers to stimulate timely investment with an objective to achieve aggregate production levels in excess of 7 million barrels per day by 2035.

Significant challenges constrain the development of these abundant and strategically important domestic energy resources.  The nature of these challenges, depending on the resource, can include technology readiness, access to resources on public lands, development economics, environmental concerns, socio-economic effects, water resources, markets, and infrastructure among others.  These challenges are summarized in Volume I and addressed in greater detail in the program plans provided in Volume II.  Volume I also amplifies the recommendations made by the Task Force in its recent Initial Report and provides a list of specific executive and legislative actions that would be required to implement the proposed plan. The profiles provided in Volume III offer an overview of the extent and potential of each of the resources considered by the Task Force, including the state of the technology, expected economics, and challenges that constrain investment and development.