Terrence Henry
Reporter
Terrence Henry reports on energy and the environment for StateImpact Texas. His radio, print and television work has appeared in the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, NPR, The Texas Tribune, The History Channel and other outlets.
He has previously worked at The Washington Post and The Atlantic. He earned a Bachelorâs Degree in International Relations from Brigham Young University.
AFP / Getty Images
An Austin oil company became a small part of the Norwegian government today. Brigham Exploration, an Austin company with about 100 employees, was purchased by Statoil, a Norwegian energy company, for over four billion dollars cash.
âI think the reaction by investors is one of surprise because many did not see the company selling themselves this early,” says Anish Patel, Managing Director of International Strategy and Investment in New York. “A lot of the deals weâve seen to date have been more focused on natural gas — this really marks the first large scale deal for oil shale.” Continue Reading →
Scott Olson/Getty Images
The current drought is wreaking havoc on crops, cattle and lawns. A five-part series in the Statesman this week looks at the extreme effects this dry period is having on Texans across the state. The hardest hit? Farmers and ranchers, with a total economic agricultural loss estimated to be $8.7 billion, according to the Texas A&M System’s AgriLife Extension Service. Will ranchers ever recover? Even if the drought ends next year, it doesn’t look good:
A U.S. Department of Agriculture report this month rates 96 percent of Texas pastureland in poor or very poor condition.
It’s not likely to get better any time soon, observers say. It’s going to take years. If ever. And there’s no telling how many of the state’s 149,000 beef producers will decide they’ve had enough.
“It’s just fighting depression,” said Casey. “For the first time in my life, it wasn’t fun to go out and feed the cows. And then every week I took a load of cattle to Fredericksburg, just a few at a time.”
Continue Reading →
It’s a little known fact: Texas is the only state that grows all four types of peanuts, and is second only to Georgia in peanut farming. Unfortunately, this yearâs extreme drought is taking a toll on West Texas peanut farmers.
Scott Olson/Getty Images
Calvin Trostle is with Texas A&M Agrilife Extension in Lubbock, where most Texas peanuts are grown. This year, heâs seeing something he never has before. âThis is a shock to us, to think that we could have an irrigated crop in the Texas High Plains fail,” he says, “but weâve had some acres of peanuts out here that eventually, as we got further into the season, we saw we simply did not have enough water.â
Even with extra irrigation, peanut farmers were short 10 to 12 inches of water this year, and the crops are suffering. Plants that appeared healthy at first are turning out to have no peanuts under them. Jimbo Grissom grows peanuts south of Lubbock. His farm went 440 days without rain, and thatâs come with a heavy cost.
âIâve never seen one, even a lot of the people that live around here, have never seen a crop year like this oneâs been. Even back in the â40s and â50s, whenever we had the Dust Bowl, it wasnât even this dry,â he says.
The cost of extra water, combined with lower yields, adds up to prices that are about three times higher than last year. It wonât be long before higher bulk prices result in peanut butter costing more at the store. Continue Reading →