SMYRNA – About $11.5 million generated last year from natural gas production in the Town of Smyrna will be handed over to officials representing the town, Chenango County and the Sherburne-Earlville School district this afternoon at a press conference convened by Commerce Chenango.

Norse Energy Inc., the Norwegian-based company that has drilled 23 wells in Chenango County, will be on hand to present large, symbolic checks based on what the company will pay out in tax to the three entities. The amounts were released by the county’s Office of Real Property Services on May 1 and are based on the estimated assessed value using last year’s tax rates.

The town will receive $83,312; Chenango County, $151,019; and Sherburne-Earlville School District, $264,569.

The new revenue is more than five times what the company generated in taxes to the three entities in 2008. There are currently about a dozen wells in Smyrna, mostly drilled vertically into the Herkimer sandstone formation. The natural gas is pumped north via the company’s pipeline in Chenango and Madison counties and east using a New York State Electrical and Gas pipeline.

The conference will take place at 3 p.m. from the Chenango County Court House steps. It will showcase the “proven results of the positive impacts of the natural gas industry on the local real property tax base and the economy,” said Maureen Carpenter, Commerce Chenango’s president and chief operating officer.