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Oil and gas revenues continue to fall

by Cindy Glasson

As anticipated, oil and gas production numbers and the money that production will bring into Hot Springs County is lower than it’s been in years.

The value per barrel pulled from the ground is down $12.14 from 2015, coming in at $24.28 for 2016 and $36.42 per barrel in 2015.

Nationally, we hear oil is coming in at $50 or so per barrel, however, in Wyoming it costs more to pump out and more to refine, keeping our gas prices higher than other areas of the country, and our price per barrel about half what states like Texas and Oklahoma are getting for their oil.

That creates a problem with severance taxes.

The six-month estimate for taxable value on oil for Hot Springs County for 2015 was $42,760,678. For 2016, that same six-month estimate is just $24,942,844.

That boils down to a 54% decrease in oil revenues for the county, even though the volume of oil coming to the surface was down just 146,872 barrels from the previous year.

Gas production is, unfortunately, in the same boat.

Estimated gas production for the first half of 2015 showed natural gas prices at $2.89 per million cubic feet, with price estimates for the first half of 2016 showing $1.94 per million cubic feet.

Those numbers put our taxable value for natural gas at $53,361 for the first six-months of 2016 compared to $118,339 for the first six months of 2015.

The estimated county valuation for 2016 currently sits at $139,392,004, much lower than 2015’s valuation of $230,839,867.

Statistically, this is the lowest valuation for Hot Springs County since 2005.

Hot Springs County has been able to continue to pay bills through the leaner years, 1987-2004, and even in the toughest of times like 1977 when the valuation was just $86.5 million.

 

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