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Oil and gas production on New Mexico’s state public land generated a record-breaking amount of revenue last month, per official figures released Tuesday by the New Mexico State Land Office.
April 2021 netted $109 million in royalties from oil and gas production on State Trust Land, the highest in the Office’s history, per a news release.
The second- and third-highest months were both last year with $108.9 million in February 2020 and $106.3 million in April of that year.
Dollars generated from royalties paid to the State Land Office by operators were deposited into the State’s Land Grant Permanent Fund to provide funding to New Mexico’s public schools, hospitals and universities, the release read.
A New Mexico Senate bill that would place a four-year moratorium on new permits for hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, passed its first committee Feb. 13 and is now closer to becoming law.
Senate Bill 149 passed the Senate Conservation Committee on a 5-4 vote and was sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee for the further discussion and a second vote.
Sponsored by Sen. Antoinette Sedillo Lopez, the bill was intended to halt new fracking operations to allow environmental officials and lawmakers to study its environmental impact.
She introduced similar legislation that died in committee during the 2019 and 2020 legislative sessions.
The fracking process, in which a combination of water, sand and chemicals is pumped underground to break deep shale deposits so crude oil and natural gas can be brought to the surface.