WASHINGTON — The Interior Department has missed out on about $21 million in net natural-gas drilling fees because of inaccurate accounting in its royalty-in-kind program, a government report shows.
Companies drilling on federal lands must pay a royalty either in cash or in oil and natural gas. However, Interior’s Minerals Management Service lacks the ability to track and adequately audit production, the Government Accountability Office said in an Aug. 14 report made public Monday.
The royalty-in-kind program, which collected $2.4 billion in deliveries of natural gas and $4.2 billion of oil in fiscal 2008, is one of the government’s largest sources of nontax revenue, according to the report.
About $14 million came from Wyoming gas fields. There were no royalty-in-kind payments from Colorado. Bloomberg News with Mark Jaffe of The Denver Post contributing; Denver Post file photo
