With Wyoming’s shale oil industry still very much in its infancy, a large volume of state-owned natural gas is going up in smoke, and along with it a small fortune in royalties that are supposed to fund our public schools.
According to the Office of State Lands and Investments — which has the fiduciary responsibility to maximize revenue from state-owned lands and minerals to fund Wyoming schools — estimates that 411,789 thousand cubic feet (mcf) of gas was flared from October 2009 to October 2011.
That’s an approximate loss of $200,000 to Wyoming’s K-12 students.