2005 News Releases

For immediate release:
July 19, 2005

Media contact:
James Hoard
Phone: (214) 922-5307
e-mail: james.hoard@dal.frb.org

Dallas Fed El Paso Branch Debuts New Publication;
Examines Unconventional Gas, Border Economies

DALLAS—The El Paso Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas today launched a new publication titled Crossroads: Economic Trends in the Desert Southwest.

Crossroads replaces Business Frontier, the El Paso Branch’s publication since 1994, and will examine a broad array of economic issues important to West Texas and New Mexico, including energy.

In Crossroads’ debut edition, vice president Robert W. Gilmer writes that the production of unconventional, or continuous, natural gas is driving New Mexico’s energy industry. Unconventional gas is stored over vast areas of coal, shale, or impermeable sandstone or limestone and produced differently from conventional gas, which is found in anticlinal traps.

From 1984 to 2004, New Mexico oil production grew 46.2 percent, while natural gas production grew 292.3 percent, Gilmer says. Unconventional gas is claiming a larger percentage of that production.

In a second article on cyclical differences in border city economies, assistant economists Jesus Cañas and Roberto Coronado and economic analyst José Joaquin Lopez find that the Mexican economy strongly influences the business cycles of Brownsville, Laredo and McAllen, whereas the U.S. and Texas economies dictate the El Paso business cycle.

Find the new Crossroads at www.dallasfed.org.

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