re: U of Alabama's Coal mineral rights

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If you were in charge would you sell these assets off?

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Nope. Only a fool sells land for no other reason than making money (unless making money is his business). If UA did sell the surface rights, they'd never sell the mineral rights, so the money from the coal will always be there. Moreover, a lot of the UA coal fields are in really rural areas that are only good for timberland otherwise. Right now, timberland around here is going for about $800-2000/acre, depending on the quality of the soil, tree maturity/coverage, and right-of-way access, so they wouldn't really raise a lot of money selling the land.

The great thing about a coal bed is that you don't have to mine the coal to make money off of it. Coal is packed full of methane. My wife's family owns 6-700 acres of land here in Tuscaloosa Co. that sits on top of a huge coal bed. Energen sends them a royalty check every month for the natural gas they pump off of it.

Since fracking started, the royalties have gone to shite, but it's a nice check for doing nothing, nonetheless.

The only real downside is that the land isn't generating property taxes for the local area like it would if it were not owned by a government entity.