Energy: Montana's Energy and Minerals Future.

• Author: Whitsitt, Bill
• Position: MONTANA ECONOMIC REPORT

When the Treasure State became Montana's nickname in the late 1800s, there was little doubt as to why. In 1865, Montana's adopted the motto Oro y Plata (gold and silver) and it remains so today. The treasures of Montana are vast and evolving in importance, which include mineral resources, like the Butte copper needed to win two world wars.

Today our state's treasures include an agricultural abundance for domestic and export markets, as well as timber, coal, hydropower, and oil and gas resources that have been the foundations of Montana's economy, and state and local revenues. This evolution continues, especially in the importance and production of energy and mineral resources.

As times and markets have changed, we've seen declines in state revenues from some traditional natural resource development.

Within sectors, however, COVID-19 and related economic uncertainty has clouded Montana trends in demand, supply and price. Coal's market and environmental driven production declines from a peak of nearly 46 million tons of annual production in 2015, was most recently reported to be some 26.4 million tons in 2021--signaling significant unused capacity. Oil and gas well permits continue to be sought and used despite the periodic uncertainty of available services to match drilling and completion schedules. Beyond these, Montana s energy and mineral treasure inventory also includes the large potential and growing production of renewable energy resources. And there is a continuing evolution toward more creativity and high-tech entrepreneurship.

A significant carbon dioxide injection program by Denbury Inc. to enhance oil production from the East Lookout Butte field in Montana and the Cedar Hills South field in North Dakota is on track with the completion of a 105-mile carbon dioxide supply pipeline. Another project captures otherwise flared natural gas at Kraken Oil & Gas well sites in Eastern Montana. Crusoe Energy Systems uses the gas to generate on-site electricity to power nearby bitcoin mining servers.

An interim Montana legislative committee is investigating with the Department of Energy and others the technical, economic and waste disposal feasibility of small modular, replicable, nuclear reactors that could perhaps make up for some of the reduced coal-fired baseload power Montana consumers have long relied upon. And so-called critical minerals, such as palladium and platinum mined in Montana and used in catalytic converter pollution reduction...