[ckilmer]

fyi

[Paladin2]

When is China going to put out their coal seam fires?

[GladesGuru]

The Chinese don’t have to deal with the enviro-mental freak regs we imposed on ourselves. Why would they want to drop coal?

[Praxeologue]

the cost for a well there is four times that of a Marcellus well.

How deep are these?

The labor component must be trivial.

[Pontiac]

To add insult to injury, many of the other regions where shale gas is found simply don't have the infrastructure in place to make them feasible -- be it remote locations in the Western deserts where water is extremely scarce, or in bustling urban areas that make drilling locations prohibitive.

I don’t think population density will be a problem for China when it comes to harvesting gas.

They will simply move some poor people out of the way and drill their wells.

They had no problem moving villages farmers and destroying ancient temples and other irreplaceable ancient artifacts to build the largest hydro dam in the world.

[Praxeologue]

Looks like costs may be lower:

“Relative to United States’ shale-gas plays, the [reserves] of the Sichuan and Tarim basins are potentially enormous and, if successful, could rival the Marcellus in terms of absolute scale,” Bernstein Research said recently. It also said initial well flows in the Sichuan basin appear better than expected while costs were lower than expected.

source WSJ March 26th

Also from Platt's March3rd.

[Rockpile]

If the Chinese costs are really higher it sure in hell is not because of pay. One hand on an American derrick floor probably makes more than two or even three tours worth of Chinese.