Editorial: Boom in drilling undercuts tax foes
Mar 4, 2015 12:00 AM
2015-03-04T00:00:00
Wednesday, March 4, 2015
Editorial: Boom in drilling undercuts tax foes
In recent months, the oil and gas industry has been resisting Gov. John Kasich’s call for higher severance taxes on drillers, claiming that the tax would depress drilling and related employment at a time when the industry already is suffering from sharply lower oil prices.
But judging by the boom in oil and natural-gas output from Ohio wells in the fourth quarter of 2014, a period when oil prices were consistently low, that argument is weak. Statistics released last week by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources show that oil output more than doubled, while natural-gas output tripled in Ohio. More than 3.5 million barrels of oil and 164 billion cubic feet of natural gas were produced in the state from October 1 through the end of the year.
Read more here: http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/editorials/2015/03/04/1-boom-in-drilling-undercuts-tax-foes.html