The rise in oil prices has resulted in relentless drilling and booming production in the U.S. shale plays, and the Permian in West Texas is attracting the most drillers, analysts, and media attention. But some bold wildcatters—encouraged by the higher oil prices—have set their sights on projects to squeeze oil out of the rocks in Utah, where lead times are much longer and costs are higher. But oil production can be sustained for decades, bringing in potential vast profits to those who manage to start and keep up production from the sands in Utah—the state holding the largest oil sands resources in the United States. According to the Utah Geological Survey, the state’s oil sand deposits contain 14 to 15 billion barrels of measured oil in place, and bitumen can be seen “ bleeding ” in some places like the Navajo Sandstone in the Whiterocks deposit in the Uinta […]