industry oil shale founded 1991 1991 headquarters parker colorado united states key people alan k. forbes president and ceo marshall savage vice president technology development john brown vice president corporate finance mark wall manager of projects number of employees 7 website www.iepm.com independent energy partners inc. iep is an oil shale resources company based in parker colorado the united states . it is a developer of the geothermic fuels cells process an in situ shale oil extraction process . ceo of the company is alan k. forbes . 1 contents 1 history 2 operations 3 geothermic fuels cells technology 4 oil shale alliance 5 references 6 external links history edit iep was founded in 1991 as an energy project and technology development company . 2 since 2002 it has focused on the development of its geothermic fuel cell technology . on february 3 2004 iep received an initial patent on the geothermic fuels cells and on april 13 2005 iep retained the consulting firm sage geotech to produce technical assessments related to this technology . on march 1 2006 iep concluded negotiations with battelle memorial institute the operator of the pacific northwest national laboratory for development of the geothermic fuel cell prototype and in september 2008 they signed agreements for modeling analysis design and engineering to commercialize this technology and related applications . 3 the continuation in part application for the geothermic fuel cell process was issued by the united states patent and trademark office on february 27 2007 . in august 2005 iep concluded has mineral interests lease within the green river formation . 2 3 in august 2008 iep signed a partnership agreement with total s.a. . 4 operations edit iep owns the patents to the geothermic fuel cell technology us patent nos. 6 684 948 b1 apparatus and method for heating subterranean formations using fuel cells and 7 182 132 b2 linearly scalable geothermic fuel cells . fuel cells are developed by delphi corporation . 1 iep owns mineral interests in the oil shale reserves within the green river formation including in rio blanco county colorado . 2 geothermic fuels cells technology edit in the independent energy partners geothermic fuels cells gfc a high temperature stack of fuel cells is placed in situ or in place within a formation . during an initial warm up period the cells are fueled by an external source of natural gas . afterwards the process is able to fuel itself using oil shale gas generated by its own waste heat . the formation is fractured by rising fluid pressure in the heated zone . alternatively the formation can be pre fractured to enhance the shale oil flow between heating and producing wells . 3 5 the company asserts a ratio of approximately 7 units of energy produced per unit used when primary recovery is combined with gasification of the residual char and use of the resulting oil shale gas . 5 in addition the fuel cell produces electric power as a by product of the process . 1 oil shale alliance edit iep together with petro probe inc. and phoenix wyoming inc have formed the oil shale alliance inc. a delaware corporation for the purpose of commercialization of in situ oil shale technologies . 6 references edit a b c michlewicz chris 2012 12 09 . clean tech oil shale company turning heads . parker chronicle . retrieved 2012 12 31 . a b c iep snags production rights . denver business journal . 2005 09 01 . retrieved 2008 08 20 . a b c fischer perry a. august 2008 . shale oil pilot projects proliferate . world oil . gulf publishing company . 229 8 . retrieved 2009 02 12 . webb dennis 2009 01 24 . french firm expands oil research into colorado . the daily sentinel . retrieved 2009 02 12 . a b secure fuels from domestic resources the continuing evolution of america s oil shale and tar sands industries pdf 4th ed . . united states department of energy . 2010 . pp. 52 53 . retrieved 2011 05 06 . letter to the senate committee on energy and natural resources pdf . oil shale alliance inc. 2006 . retrieved 2009 02 12 . united states congress . senate . committee on energy and natural resources 2006 . oil shale provisions of epact hearing before the committee on energy and natural resources united states senate one hundred ninth congress second session on the implementation of the oil shale provisions of the energy policy act of 2005 grand junction co june 1 2006 . united states government printing office . p. 83 . external links edit official website retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title independent energy partners & oldid 743429674 categories oil companies of the united statesoil shale companiescompanies based in denverparker colorado navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction 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