Midstream & Water Operators in Rural Texas - Data Center Impact
If Texas was its own country we would be the fourth largest oil and gas producer on the planet, and I would bet most people living here have no idea they are standing on top of it...
I had Railroad Commissioner Wayne Christian on The Crude Truth and he did not sugarcoat any of it!!
1. We produce 40 to 50% of all US oil and gas and we are the biggest LNG force in the free world.
2. Energy pays 40% of the state budget, and that covers the permanent school fund, the rainy day fund, and the higher education fund.
3. That is what separates us from every other state, which is exactly why everybody outside of Texas wants a say in what we do next.
We are sitting on all of that and over half the counties in this state are flat or losing people, with the filling stations and the hardware stores closed up and whole squares boarded over. I have driven through those towns and I imagine you have too.
Think about this: A hundred million dollar facility is going into a town of 700 out in deep East Texas, and it comes with about 50 permanent jobs and close to a million a year in school property tax. Nobody in Houston blinks at a number like that, but out there it means 50 hard fathers get to sleep in their own house...
Look, I am still not sold on state and local governments handing out tax incentives for these deals and I have written about that before, but we are the ones producing the energy that makes all of this run, so we ought to be at that table helping write the Texas plan instead of finding out how it went afterward.
The pause only means something if we actually use it.
So do these data centers belong in rural Texas, and what does that plan need to look like? I want to hear from the operators, the water and midstream folks, and the people actually living out in those counties.
#oilandgas #energy #TheCrudeTruth #Texas #DataCenters
What's your perspective? Stuart Turley, David Blackmon, Irina Slav, Anne Bradbury, Todd Staples, Karr Ingham, George P. Bush, Rhett Bennett, Brian Stubbs, Jim H., Michael Tanner, Doug Sheridan, Daniel Yergin, Michael C., Mike Sommers, Ed Ireland. Simon Ateba.
You can my discussion with the commissioner on The Crude Truth podcast: 👇
https://lnkd.in/gBJ-Gqhc