Shale Gas Race Begins in the US, Where Will it End?

[solarant]

It is said that as the last century was that of oil, this century will be that of natural gas. And the prophecy might indeed come true what with the latest discoveries of shale gas in many regions in the world, especially North America.

For instance, let's look at [URL="http://eai.in/blog/2010/06/shale-gas-race-begins-reliance-one-of-the-players.html"]this post on the shale gas race from the EAI Blog[/URL]: "There is currently a shale gas mania, with analysts predicting that shale gas based natural gas could become the leading energy component in the US and perhaps in countries like India too, in a decade from now.

Reliance obviously is not the first to make major acquisitions in this area.

Dec 2009 – ExxonMobil bought shale gas assets of XTO Energy for $30 billion

Jan 2010 – French oil company Total SA shale assets from Chesapeake Energy for $2.6 billion

Apr 2010 – Reliance bought 40% stake in Atlas Energy’s shale gas field for $1.7 billion

May 2010 – Royal Dutch Shell bought a majority stake in East Resources for $4.7 billion

June 2010 – Reliance buys a stake in Pioneer Natural Resources for $1.35 billion
"
That's a lot of acquisitions within just a year, for such a new area. It just points once again to the tremendous amount of excitement in the market regarding the potential of shale gas. At the same time, there are a few analysts and industry professionals who feel that the optimism for shale gas is exaggerated. They feel that all is not rosy for shale gas, and that it is quite likely that the costs of shale gas will be much than what are being projected.

While that may well be the case, right now, there is no denying that shale gas (and natural gas in general) is having its finest moment and more acquisitions and investments can be expected for the next one year or so in this domain.