April 9. TomCo Energy (LON:TOM) said Red Leaf Resources, its near neighbour in Utah, has submitted written notice that it will commence mining on its Seep Ridge property.

This means it is moving ahead with the construction of a demonstration project that hopefully proves its oil shale technology is commercial on a large scale.

Red Leaf is effectively a pathfinder for AIM-listed TomCo, with the pair targeting oil shale.

This shouldn’t be confused with shale oil as it is mined rather than drilled and fracked.

TomCo and Red Leaf aim to do this using the EcoShale in-capsule process, which gently heat-separates the oil.

Any success Red Leaf and its joint-venture partner Total have establishing that this commercially unproven technology works will have a direct and very positive impact on TomCo.

It effectively de-risks the opportunity and assigns a far higher value to the JORC-compliant 126mln barrels of oil estimated to be contained within the Tomco’s Holliday block.

TomCo’s Paul Rankine said: "We are pleased to see that Red Leaf has submitted notice of commencement of mining and is moving forward into the full construction phase to construct its first capsule to demonstrate the EcoShale in-capsule process."