For many years, the oil shale "boom" in western Colorado has been just around the corner. Now, the Colony Shale Oil Project, a joint development of The Oil Shale Corp. and Exxon Corp., is under full construction and will be the nation's first full-sized commercial shale oil project. The Colony operation, located in Garfield County in northwestern Colorado, is targeted for production at a rate of 47,000 bbl/day of synthetic oil in early 1986. To support the plant, it will be necessary to produce 66,000 tons/day of oil shale from a conventional room-and-pillar mine.

The shale will be hauled from the mine in 85-ton trucks and crushed to -9 in. (229 mm) in a 72 × 109 in. (1.8 × 2.8 m) gyratory crusher. The coarse ore will then be transported by a 72 in. (1.8 m) conveyor belt 5,000 ft (1,525 m) to the secondary crushing station where it will be further reduced to -½ in. (13 mm) by eleven impactor crushers. The finely crushed shale will enter six Tosco II retorts, each capable of processing 11,000 tons/day. When heated to 900°F (482°C) in the pyrolysis drum, the kerogen vaporizes and is separated from the spent shale. The oil shale vapors are then condensed, fractionated, and upgraded by hydrotreating before entering a pipeline to be transported to a conventional refinery. By-products ammonia, sulfur, and coke will be recover d from the upgrading process.

To mitigate the impact of a large work force on the sparsely populated Western Slope, Colony is developing the Battlement Mesa community on the Colorado River 15 mi (24 km) south of the project site. When completed, the community will house approximately 25,000 residents in a variety of housing types, and will be the second largest town in western Colorado. Colony is providing the equivalent of interest-free loans to local organizations for the establishment of schools, a fire station, and other needed facilities.

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