Red Leaf Resources, Inc, is a developer of the EcoShale In-Capsule Process, a shale oil extraction technology. It has its headquarters in Salt Lake City, Utah

Utah

Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...

. Red Leaf Resources is a developer of the shale oil extraction technology EcoShale In-Capsule Process.

Technology

In the Red-Leaf Resources EcoShale In-Capsule Process a hot gas is generated by burning natural gas

Natural gas

Natural gas is a naturally occurring gas mixture consisting primarily of methane, typically with 0–20% higher hydrocarbons . It is found associated with other hydrocarbon fuel, in coal beds, as methane clathrates, and is an important fuel source and a major feedstock for fertilizers.Most natural...

 or pyrolysis gas. Generated hot gas is then circulated through oil shale

Oil shale

Oil shale, an organic-rich fine-grained sedimentary rock, contains significant amounts of kerogen from which liquid hydrocarbons called shale oil can be produced...

 rubble

Rubble

Rubble is broken stone, of irregular size, shape and texture. This word is closely connected in derivation with "rubbish", which was formerly also applied to what we now call "rubble". Rubble naturally found in the soil is known also as brash...

 using sets of parallel pipes. The heat is transferred to the shale through the pipe walls rather than being injected directly into the rubble, thereby avoiding dilution of the product hydrocarbons with the heating gas. The oil shale rubble is enclosed by a low-cost earthen impoundment structure to prevent environmental contamination and to provide easier and more rapid reclamation after the extraction process is finished. Heat from the spent shale is recovered for enhancing the process's energy efficiency by passing cool gas through pipes and then using it for preheating adjacent capsules.

Operations

Red Leaf Resources controls oil shale leases of about 17000 acres (68.8 km²) on state land in Seep Ridge, Utah. The acreage represents about 1.1 Goilbbl of shale oil

Shale oil

Shale oil, known also as kerogen oil or oil-shale oil, is an unconventional oil produced from oil shale by pyrolysis, hydrogenation, or thermal dissolution. These processes convert the organic matter within the rock into synthetic oil and gas...

. The company plans to start building a Uinta Basin mine and shale oil plant in 2012 and start production by 2014 if its permit is approved.

In 2011, Red Leaf Resources signed a licence agreement with TomCo Energy allowing the latter to use the EcoShale technology for developing the Holliday block in Utah.

Management

The director, president and chief executive officer is James Patten. Chuck Keracik is chief operating officer. Matt Greene is director and chief finance officer. Vice President for International Project Development is Tony Dammer, former director of the Office of Naval Petroleum and Oil Shale Reserves

Office of Naval Petroleum and Oil Shale Reserves

The United States Office of Naval Petroleum and Oil Shale Reserves is part of the US Department of Energy. It was established in 1912 to monitor and analyse the US's oil shale reserves....

. Vice president for energy and environment is Laura Nelson.
Todd Dana was one of the original founders of Red Leaf Resources and former chief operating officer.