Utah has more oil than Middle East

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) in testimony before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee detailed his efforts to develop fuel from a vast untapped domestic oil reserve in tar sandsand oil shale -- a large part of which sits in eastern Utah.

'Who would have guessed that in just Colorado and Utah, there is more recoverable oil than in the Middle East?' Hatch said. 'We just don't count it among our nation's oil reserves because it is not yet being developed commercially. I find it disturbing that Utah imports oil from Canada tar sands, even though we have a larger tar sands resource within our own boundaries that remains undeveloped.'

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, recoverable oil shale in the western United States -- located mainly in Utah, Colorado and Wyoming -- exceeds one trillion barrels and is the richest and most geographically concentrated oil shale and tar sands resource in the world. Hatch noted that Canada recognized the potential of the large tar sands deposits in the province of Alberta and developed a government policy to go promote their development -- increasing its oil reserves by more than a factor of 10.