CER Geonuclear, acting for itself and as operator for Equity Oil Company of Salt Lake City, has developed, in cooperation with the Atomic Energy Commission, a set of detailed plans utilizing nuclear explosives for an underground engineering experiment called Project Rio Blanco. The overall objective is to prove the commercial feasibility of using nuclear explosives to recover commercial quantities of tightly held natural gas in the Piceance Basin. The experiment is designed to fracture a 1, 300-foot vertical section of Fort Union and Mesaverde gas sands by using three spaced, 3D-kiloton (kt) nuclear explosives fired simultaneously in one wellbore. A few months after the detonation, the well will be reentered and the potential for gas production tested. The experiment will be conducted so as to allow a safe and timely economic assessment of field development plans. The gas sands between the depths of 5,530 and 6,830 feet included in the experiment are estimated to contain approximately 74 billion standard cubic feet (BSCF) of natural gas per section. ':'Reservoir calculations, based on the permeability, porosity, and sand thickness measured at the Emplacement Well (EW), RB-E -01, indicate that the stimulated well could produce natural gas at a rate of 8 million standard cubic feet per day (MMSCFD) for the first year, and then the rate would start to decline (Figure LA-I). After 25 years, the well could still produce gas at the rate of about 1 MMSCFD. The cumulative gas recovery from a single nuclear stimulated well per section is also shown in Figure IA-l. The expected recovery over the Z5-year period is calculated to be 17.5 BSCF of gas. Success with the first nuclear stimulation should lead to further development of the field (Ref. 1). This development would be continued through two larger demonstration phases (Phase II and Phase III) as outlined in CER GeonuclearTs proposal to the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), the Department of the Interior, and the Office of Emergency Preparedness.