McKittrick Oil Field the Teapot Dome Scandal of the Warren G. Harding administration; adjacent to the southwest is the Belgian Anticline Oil Field, along Route 58; and to the southeast is the huge Midway-Sunset Oil Field, the third largest oil field in the United States. The total productive area of the field is . The field is about long on the southeast to northwest axis, and about across. The predominant geologic feature, and the one that makes the McKittrick field distinctive, is the presence of a huge block of Monterey shale – more than long, approximately wide, and up to thick – which
History of the oil shale industry in the United States bidding, with a winning bid of US$210.3 million. Tract C-a covered 5,100 acres, about eight square miles. Rio Blanco had planned to mine oil shale from an open pit, but wanted the BLM to make additional land available for off-site disposal of the overburden, which the BLM declined. The company turned to in "situ mining". Underground combustion was started in 1980. Two more burns were started in 1981, and the company recovered about 25,000 barrels of oil until a water pump failed, and groundwater prematurely extinguished all three underground burns in 1984. in 1976, a consortium of TOSCO, Shell Oil,