News

Forbes | Jude Clemente | May 1, 2019

The Permian shale play in West Texas continues to see growth in oil and gas production, surging past all pessimism and expectations.

This month, the Permian will account for ~35% of U.S. crude production and ~17% of natural gas supply

1. Fracking creates jobs.

The oil and natural gas industry employs more than 100,000 New Mexicans thanks to fracking! New Mexico’s oil and natural gas industry even saw its employment rate increase by 2.3% in 2018.

It has been 10 years since the combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing technologies reversed the United States’ position from that of energy scarcity to energy abundance. This has changed the economy for the long haul and in the process thrust the term “fracking” into the mainstream American lexicon.

During this time, “keep it in the ground” anti-fracking activists have desperately tried to diminish fracking’s many benefits by exploiting its clickbait-inducing moniker. They have claimed incessantly that the process causes just about every environmental and health calamity imaginable. Most recently, shale opponents have even tried to link fracking to depression, obesity and sexually transmitted diseases.

But amid muddied waters created by these unfounded and oftentimes ridiculous assertions, a sober evaluation of a decade’s worth of scientific data clearly reveals that fracking’s benefits have far outweighed its risks. And those risks have been routinely exaggerated or flat out made up by shale opponents.

Jeff McMahon | Forbes | June 26, 2017

The benefits of fracking far outweigh its costs not only economically, but environmentally, a Stanford University geophysicist said Friday.

After teaching geophysics at Stanford for 30 years Mark Zoback took the helm of Stanford's new Natural Gas Initiative three years ago, he said, because of gas's environmental benefits.

"We did it because there were so many important and obvious environmental benefits to the utilization of natural gas," Zoback said. "So it’s somewhat ironic to be asked to argue for the notion that these benefits outweigh the environmental costs, when it’s the environmental benefits that got me into this business in the first place."

Zoback's remarks opened the annual debate at Stanford's Silicon Valley Energy Summit, and were swiftly challenged by representatives of the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Matthew DiLallo | The Motley Fool | April 14, 2019

The Permian Basin is a gift that keeps on giving. Oil producers have pumped out an astounding 30 billion barrels from the region since its discovery in 1921. However, an estimated 46 billion barrels of recoverable oil remain on the Delaware Basin side alone. The region has decades of growth ahead.

Morgan Lee | AP | April 3, 2019

SANTA FE - Legislation to increase teacher salaries, extend instructional time at public schools and boost spending on low-income students was signed into law Wednesday by New Mexico’s Democratic governor.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed three bills that are tied to nearly a half-billion dollar increase in annual state general fund spending on public education.