NATCHEZ — Adams County may have found a small silver lining to the stalling of oil production in the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale.

For the last five months, the company Go West had an agreement to use the scale house at the former International Paper property for approximately $1,500 a month, but recently allowed the agreement to lapse, Adams County Board Attorney Scott Slover said.

County Administrator Joe Murray said Go West had planned to use the facility to mix products used in the oil and gas recovery process in the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale.

Go West apparently pulled out in response to the slowdown in development in the shale, Slover said.

The Go West industrial recruitment effort had not been previously publicly discussed.

Where Adams County may be beneficiary of that falling through goes back to its initial agreement with the company. Go West had agreed to invest in the scale house and get the scales working again.

Board of Supervisors Vice President Mike Lazarus said the company spent $20,000 upgrading the scales and getting them operational.

“The improvements are ours and at no cost to us,” Slover said. “Taxpayers weren’t out a penny.”

Now, the company demolishing the former IP buildings — TDT Contracting — wants to pay the county to use the scales, Lazarus said.

“Go West was actually letting them use (the scales) already,” Lazarus said. “Now that they’re gone they’re asking us about (paying to use them).”

Lazarus saw the upgrades to the scale house the county inherited because of Go West’s pulling out as a silver lining.

“We take our lumps, but we get what we can,” he said.

The Tuscaloosa Marine Shale is a marine deposited shale formation that has been the source bed for the Tuscaloosa sand sections that have been drilled in Mississippi for the last 30 to 40 years.

Oil companies in the past have been able to drill through the shale to access the oil under it, but the migrating clays in the shale itself could clog drilling equipment and made operations difficult. In the last couple of years technological advances had allowed for the shale to be tapped, but the precipitous drop in oil prices in recent months has led to a significant slowing in the shale development.