KARNES CITY, TEXAS - "Sitting in the bank manager's office, the man turned to his wife. "Show it to him, Mama," he said as they settled into wooden chairs across from Paul Brysch in the Karnes County National Bank. She nodded, slid an envelope from her purse and handed it to Brysch. A check for more than $300,000 was inside, the first royalty check
from an Eagle Ford Shale well drilled on their property on the edge of
Karnes County.
"Congratulations! Y'all must be thrilled!" Brysch said. "No, no, you don't understand," the man said, furrowing his brow.
"We've never had money like this before. What do we do with it?"
The question has been repeated across the Crossroads since the Eagle
Ford Shale play began booming, but nowhere is it more poignant than in
Karnes County. These days, the county is a lively place, the epicenter
of an oil boom changing the face of South Texas and bringing wealth to
people who have struggled and scraped for generations just to keep hold
of their land."
I wish it would come to me!
ReplyDeleteThe U.S. is one of very few countries in the world where the rights to what lies underneath one's property belong to, um, one. I read often about the "oil curse." It never happened here because the government didn't own it. The property owners did.
ReplyDeleteWow, that's a great point, Craig, about the "oil curse." Great point.
ReplyDelete