Utah is blessed with a productive Uinta Basin that produces both oil and natural gas, and five oil refineries that serve the needs of our residents and those beyond our borders. As with any state or region, ours has unique benefits and challenges. How much do you know about what makes Utah a unique place to do business? In our first issue of 2026, we have taken it upon ourselves to explore that uniqueness and discuss it from a variety of angles. A Unique Product, Unique Geography During the American Revolution, Benjamin Franklin was asked, “What have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” He famously responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.” Regarding Utah, we have a basin poised for growth — if we can keep it. The biggest contributing factor to the overall health of the oil and gas industry is crude oil prices. Crude oil is a globally traded commodity subject to a multitude of factors, including geopolitics, natural phenomena, consumer behavior and much more. We’ve written about “the butterfly effect” before, which means Utah is subject to events far beyond our control. And in terms of crude prices, the Energy Information Administration is predicting $55 per barrel in 2026, which is below optimal levels for maximizing production in the Uinta Basin. Additionally, Utah has more federal lands than any other state but Nevada, as well as tribal jurisdictions, creating additional layers of regulatory complexity, risk and operating costs that other competing basins don’t face. When investors consider Utah, they compare it to other basins that don’t face these stacked costs. Investors don’t compare state tax vs. tribal tax; they look at the “all in” operating cost and risk. If Utah were to, for whatever reason, make wells more expensive, companies that operate across multiple basins would be forced to reconsider where they invest their dollars to maximize returns. If then production were to decline, the result would be less severance tax revenue, which, for one, would affect the state’s transportation budget. To see this in action, one need only look to last year, when the legislature added a new production tax on all oil and gas to support local roads. The Division of Oil, Gas & Mining is also currently making new rules to increase its bonding costs. Continuing to stack costs on these wells makes them more likely to be shut in and will drop production and severance tax revenues to the state. 9 UPDATE
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