Federal revenue grows in New Mexico thanks to oil and gas

While Oklahoma’s rig counts have plunged in the past year to less than half of what they were a year ago, the count in New Mexico’s Permian Basin has replaced Oklahoma as the state with the second highest number of oil and gas rigs.

And it’s showing in the revenue generated for the state of New Mexico. The Carlsbad Current-Argus reported that jobs and revenue on public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management increased dramatically in 2018. Thanks to oil and gas.

The BLM reported the number of jobs on government land in 2017 was 468,000. In 2018, the number was up to 471,000. BLM operations also saw an increase in revenue from $95.6 billion in 2017 to $105 billion last year. The report said the main contributor was energy production because the BLM leased 13 million acres in New Mexico to the energy industry in 2018.

The New Mexico BLM office, which also manages lands in Kansas and Oklahoma, generated $20 billion total, records show, with $18.9 billion coming from oil and gas – the most in the country.

In total, $71.5 billion was generated from oil and gas nationwide by the BLM in 2018.

Wyoming was second on oil and gas revenue, with $13.2 billion in 2018, per the study, with Colorado in third at $6.9 billion.

Coal production managed at the New Mexico office generated $245.2 million and non-energy minerals brought in $281.6 million, records show.