History of the oil shale industry in the United States Act of 1985 which among other things abolished the United States' Synthetic Liquid Fuels Program. Union finally bowed to continued low oil prices and closed the project in 1991, rather than complete the US$2 billion project. Over several decades, some of the world's largest oil companies (Amoco, Arco, Chevron, Exxon, Gulf, Phillips, Shell, Sohio, Sunoco, Texaco, Union Oil) had spent billions of dollars to start an oil shale industry in the Green River Formation, the world's largest oil shale resource. But in the end, cheap petroleum prices drove oil shale out of business. Even after the oil shale bust, some
Mining in Ecuador Barron and his company Aurelian discovered a large deposit at Fruta del Norte, estimated to be 10 million ounces of gold and 14 million ounces of silver. Following changes to Ecuadorian mining laws that limited foreign ownership of mining projects, the Canadian company Kinross Gold acquired Aurelian Resources in 2009 and took on the Fruta del Norte project, which is set in the Amazon province of Zamora Chinchipe in southern Ecuador. Described by some as "one of the most exciting gold discoveries of the past 15 years," it has an estimated reserve of 6.8 million ounces of gold and 9.1