HOUSTON: More than a dozen top US energy companies have pledged $100 million toward easing stresses on health care, education and civic infrastructure from the shale oil and gas boom in West Texas and New Mexico, the group said.
Chevron, EOG Resources, Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell are among 17 companies backing the Permian Strategic Partnership, as the consortium is called, Don Evans, a former US government official and energy executive helping launch the group, said. The group seeks to address labour and housing shortages, overtaxed health care and traffic congestion caused in part by companies descending on the Permian Basin, the nation’s largest oilfield, where they hope to pump billions of dollars’ worth of oil and gas in coming decades, experts said.
“It’s a significant amount of money, but these are huge challenges,” said Evans, a former US Secretary of Commerce who lives in Midland, Texas, the epicentre of the shale oil revolution. “We don’t have enough teachers. We don’t have enough doctors.” The group aims to work with regional and federal officials, companies, nonprofit groups and educators in New Mexico and Texas, said Evans, who started in the Permian and became CEO of producer Tom Brown Inc before joining the administration of former President George W Bush.
The group is assembling plans to hold meetings in communities across the region, so “everyone have a voice” in the undertaking. There is no timetable or plan for how the initial contribution will be spent. The group is recruiting staff and searching for office space, he said.
In the last decade, the region’s many pockets of oil and low production costs have led to gold rush-like conditions in the Permian. Companies are pouring staff and equipment into the oilfield, which is expected to pump 3.7 million barrels per day of oil by December, four times its rate in 2010, according to US Energy Information Administration. — Reuters
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