CBS visits the TMS
CBS News visited the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale this week.
I've become the "go to" guy for helping news organizations in the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale, it seems.
Somehow I've managed to become involved in visits and reports from the Associated Press, Bloomberg News, Business Journal North and Mississippi Business Journal in the past...not to mention regular reports via the McComb Enterprise-Journal and the Woodville Republican.
I just hope that somehow by keeping the public informed I am doing good for the TMS. Regardless, it has been a fun experience.
CBS is the latest adventure. I helped them set up visits to a soon-to-be fractured well in Tangipahoa Parish, to two rigs in Amite County, and helped set up an interview with an owner of a drill site. Then, I took them on a brief tour of the metropolitan Liberty area, personally.
Apparently, CBS has been doing a series on how the low oil prices have affected communities. They said they had been to New York and Houston, Texas, among other places. Liberty was a natural next stop in order to adequately cover this story.
Basically, I gathered CBS would have preferred if I had shared an "Oh, Woe is me." attitude toward the low oil prices. Certainly, in the short run, low oil prices aren't good for the TMS, but my position is that in the long run it may be a good thing.
A slow down in development of the TMS actually provides time for infrastructure to be put into place to capture more income from the play locally; it will give folks here an opportunity to better prepare to provide goods and services.
And, in fact, I've seen and heard of things being done to make these preparations.
For example, fluids companies are setting up, restaurants are being built, motels are being opened, sand operations are being developed, and, so forth.
If the TMS blossoms in a year or so, there will be a lot more opportunities here to make money while at the same time providing less expense to the operating companies...a win/win for local folks in my book.
Because, if the operating companies' costs are lower, it is more likely for drilling to occur and to cover a wider geographical portion of the TMS. "Marginal" areas suddenly become profitable areas.
Again, that's my take on things.
We'll see how CBS News with Scott Pelley reports it, if they do. We could easily be bumped for what appears to be a flu epidemic in the Busy Corner community. You never now.
The scheduled time of broadcast for the TMS report is 5:30 p.m. central time on Friday, December 19, 2014.
Now, whether it gets broadcast then or not, remains to be seen.
Stay tuned!
