I talked with someone recently that visited the UT and saw this one pad natural gas well site and was told it generated significant revenue for the university. This is from a recent article on the project:
“Since wells on campus started production in 2008, the University of Texas at Arlington has received nearly $10 million in royalty payments,” said Kristin Sullivan, assistant vice president for media relations at UTA.
Sullivan explained that UTA was approached by multiple oil and gas companies in 2007 when energy companies realized that the urban centers of Fort Worth and Arlington sat atop the “sweet spot,” an area that has yielded trillions of cubic feet of natural gas in the past decade.
In 2008, the first six wells on went into production on the north Texas campus.
The 420-acre UTA campus has 22 natural gas wells and one pad site. The site is located on the southeast corner of campus in downtown Arlington, less than a mile from the Dallas Cowboys Stadium.
The university receives 27 percent of all natural gas produced. The funds support undergraduate scholarships and graduate fellowships, as well as the retention and recruitment of faculty and staff.
David, how is this relevant to our situation in NB? Surely you’re not suggesting that UNB, for instance, will be able to negotiate with the gas companies, or have the opportunity to lease their land to the highest bidder?
My point was only that if shale gas is so dangerous how come a university in the middle of a multi-million person urban area has 20+ fracked wells right underneath?