SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A company that holds a federal lease for an oil-shale demonstration project says it's getting ready to produce some oil.

American Shale Oil LLC planned to brief an Unconventional Fuels conference Tuesday at the University of Utah.

Executives tell The Associated Press their project can bake oil shale deep underground without contaminating groundwater supplies.

AMSO is working a piece of land in western Colorado near another oil-shale research project by Shell Oil Co.

Colorado, Utah and Wyoming have rich reserves of oil shale, a rock containing fossilized algae that must be heated or dissolved before releasing a petroleum-like liquid.

AMSO is a joint venture of French oil company Total S.A. and Newark, New Jersey-based Genie Energy Corp.

Other oil-shale companies are expected to show their efforts at Tuesday's conference.

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