Shale oil and gas finds in north Louisiana have pumped up state mineral leases to the highest levels in twenty-five years. The state Mineral Board collected $35.8 million in cash payments yesterday at the June lease sale, primarily from leasing taking place around the Haynesville Shale, in the northwest part of the state. The June lease sale revenue is more than double the bonus payments for the previous 11 months of fiscal year 2007-08 combined. Yesterday’s haul, added to $27.1 million the state has already received, brings the fiscal year total to $62.9 million, the highest year for the state since the oil boom years of 1982-83, which topped out at $125 million. Last year, the state received $52 million in bonus payments.
“This is an extraordinary time for Louisiana, particularly in north Louisiana, where we are experiencing something akin to a modern day gold rush due to excitement about the Haynesville Shale discovery,” says Mineral Board Secretary Majorie McKeithen. According to the state Department of Natural Resources, 25 of the 38 leases awarded in June were from Caddo, Red River and Bienville parishes. Typically, in the past, the state’s bonus for north Louisiana leases ran about $400 an acre. This month, the average bonus per acre for these leases was over $13,400 per acre.
There will soon be a whole lot of shakin’ going on at Benny’s Sportshack Supplement Depot, a new concept by Opelousas native Benny Nele. Located at 2002 Johnston St., the supplement shop, smoothie bar and café, featuring hot off the press paninis and wraps, plans to open in late May.
Philip deMahy Sr., a once respected New Iberia ad exec, was sentenced May 2 to spend the next two years (he faced up to 100 years) in a state penitentiary after state and federal investigators found dozens of images depicting children engaged in lewd sexual acts on his personal computer.
This year’s Cool Town issue is all about people who are not native to South Louisiana but made a conscious decision to be here, to be among us, to participate in our culture and contribute to it.
A shelved ordinance transferring $200,000 from a northside drainage project to a south Lafayette development may not break any laws, but it stinks to high heaven.
An effort to restore a shuttered dancehall and document other vacant or razed honky-tonks could serve as a model for saving an endangered species of entertainment.
Lafayette’s gene pool has been host to a long line of eccentric characters who have blurred the lines between crazy, genius, disturbed and curiously entertaining.
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