In northwest La., natural gas is gold

• By GARY PERILLOUX
• Advocate business writer
• Published: Jun 14, 2008 - Page: 1A - UPDATED: 12:10 a.m.

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South of Shreveport in DeSoto Parish, the story goes that 21 new millionaires were made last month.

The big money may be yet to come.

That would come in the form of 25 percent royalty payments on natural gas mined two miles beneath the Red River soil, in a formation known as the Haynesville Shale.

The early payments reportedly making millionaires of large landowners are simply up-front leases to the tune of $5,000 or $10,000 an acre — sometimes more.

“It’s going to be the largest (natural gas) field in the U.S.,” said Baton Rouge native Raymond Lasseigne, who’s worked in the oil and gas business in northwest Louisiana since 1971. “The numbers you hear are for anywhere from 3 trillion cubic feet to 15 trillion cubic feet.”

At today’s price of $12 per thousand cubic feet, that much natural gas — on the upper end — could be worth a tidy $180 billion.

Do the math, and that’s a lot of wealth to share in several million acres radiating out from Shreveport.

Marjorie McKeithen, the state Mineral Board secretary, summed up the hullabaloo swirling about the shale discovery, which was announced in March by Oklahoma City-based Chesapeake Energy Corp.

“If this discovery ends up being as big as Chesapeake believes that it is, it could very well be the biggest thing in our state’s history,” said McKeithen, whose board collected $35 million this week in bonus payments for new leases of state land, much of it in northwest Louisiana. “It’s early. It’s unproven right now, but this is something extraordinary.”

The June lease payments received by the Mineral Board totaled more than the previous 11 months combined and lifted the fiscal year total to nearly $63 million.

That’s the most the Mineral Board has received since getting $125 million for drilling rights on state-owned property and water bottoms in 1982-83 before the state’s big oil bust.

Of the June leases, 25 of the 38 awarded were from Caddo, Red River and Bienville parishes, McKeithen said.

McKeithen was among state officials attending a public forum Thursday at the Shreveport Convention Center. Called by the city’s mayor, Cedric Glover, the event drew more than 1,000 people. A second Shreveport forum on the Haynesville Shale is set for June 21, a week from today.