In almost breathless prose, the New York Times discovered Sunday that there's shale gas out there.
All over the world. Lots of it. As with US shale, estimates of proved reserves are all over the map -- ranging from as low as 10 years' worth to as high as several centuries' worth.
Western Europeans, according to the Times, see the resource as a welcome road away from their normal gas peddler, Russia, which every winter holds the chilly continent hostage to pipeline negotiations with the Ukraine.
While Chesapeake Energy has long disclosed that Norwegian geologists and engineers are studying shale at the Oklahoma City producer's shale school (also in Oklahoma City) as part of Statoil's $3.4 billion buy into one-third of Chesapeake's Marcellus play, the Times' Sunday piece lifted a few other small kimonos:
ExxonMobil has drilled some exploratory shale wells in Germany, Chesapeake's rival shale cracker Devon Energy is teaming up with French oil giant Total to drill horizontal wells in France, and ConocoPhillips has signed a deal to bring the magic of hydraulic fracturing to Poland.
Italian oil company ENI bought a small shale field north of Fort Worth in May from Quicksilver Resources and is using it to educate its engineers and scientists while Quicksilver workers operate the field.
European energy firms like shale for the same reason the Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale is still feeling gas company love amidst a recession: vast supplies close to gas-burning urban markets, according to the Times.
Still to come, according to the paper (channeling its inner Aubrey McClendon by way of T. Boone Pickens): shale gas in China and India. Clean-burning gas for emerging markets combats the climate change problems to come if both countries stick to coal, the article indicates.
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