Prosperity for Rural Montana? Who Knew?

News
May 6, 2014
Evelyn Pyburn
 
Whether its natural gas processing plants, refineries, pipelines, or rail hubs, we are seeing them locate in North Dakota like mushrooms popping up on a warm spring morning. The difference in whether they locate in North Dakota or in Montana is sometimes only a matter of a few miles – and always it seems they make the effort to get over that border into North Dakota.
 
There was plenty of mumbled audience comment which indicated that most of the people in the room understood why the question was asked, and they understood what wasn't said. Application for permitting in Montana wouldn't even begin to be processed within a two year span. The company or any company could very well be still waiting for permitting, ten years from now, having spent millions on legal expenses.
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This issue looms as very important to Montana's future, given the prediction during the conference by Mr. Goodin that many companies, including foreign ones, in need of low-cost natural gas will want to locate close to the source – investing millions of dollars — in "rural areas" to launch all kinds of manufacturing enterprises. Karen Harbert, President & CEO of the Institute for 21st Century Energy, said that such companies will be flooding the US. Those companies have a lot of options for picking sites. One has to wonder how Montana will compare to other states as an option. Unfortunately, there are far too many headlines to warn them to stay away from Montana.
 
Read the full article at Big Sky Business Journal.