In Colorado and Utah, there is as much oil as in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Venezuela, Nigeria, Kuwait, Libya, Angola, Algeria, Indonesia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates combined, according to estimates.

Trapped in limestone up to 200 feet, or 61 meters, thick in the two Rocky Mountain states is enough so-called shale oil to rival the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and supply the United States for a century.

Exxon Mobil and Chevron, the two biggest U.S. energy companies, and Royal Dutch Shell are spending $100 million a year testing new methods to separate the oil from the stone for as little as $30 a barrel. A growing number of industry executives and analysts say new technology and persistently high prices make the idea feasible.

“The breakthrough is that now the oil companies have a way of getting this oil out of the ground without the massive energy and manpower costs that killed these projects in the 1970s,” said Pete Stark, an analyst at IHS, a research firm in Englewood, Colorado. “All the shale rocks in the world are going to be revisited now to see how much oil they contain.”

The United States imports two-thirds of its oil, spending $300 billion a year, or 40 percent its trade deficit. Oil prices have risen 63 percent since 2004 and higher fuel costs have slowed U.S. growth to the lowest rate in four years.

The last effort to exploit the Colorado and Utah shale fields foundered in the 1980s after crude oil prices tumbled 72 percent, resulting in a multibillion dollar loss for Exxon. Now techniques developed to extract oil from tar sands in Alberta, 1,600 miles, or 2,500 kilometers, to the north, may help the U.S. projects’ engineers.

“The potential for shale is large,” said Joseph Stanislaw, senior energy adviser for Deloitte Touche. “Assuming the technology proves out, the size and scale of the reserves are significant.”

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