A
MID THE dust and sagebrush of New Mexico there are 61 rigs at work. The south-eastern part of the state, which sits over the shales of the Permian basin that spans the border with Texas, has over the past decade attracted shale-oil specialists, oil majors like ExxonMobil and innumerable camp followers fixing pumps, selling pipe and hauling the sand used to fracture the underground strata. About 40,000 people in the state now work in the sector; the taxes it generates pay for a third of the state’s budget; and it accounts for about 1% of America’s greenhouse-gas emissions.
Listen to this story