Shale oil and gas are plentiful throughout the world’s energy basins. China, Europe, and Argentina have huge resources. The problem is the infrastructure. To develop on a massive scale, you need roads, pipelines, and processing facilities. You also need some economic sanity (Europe has effectively banned hydraulic fracturing, which is the only way to unlock the hydrocarbons). Major oil service companies must be set up with yards, equipment and personnel - this alone will take years to establish overseas. You need the right kind of proppant (spherically-grained white sand works best, found exclusively in the upper Midwest of the U.S.).
All of these are up and running in the U.S., which is why we are the front lines of the unconventional resource revolution!
“..All of these are up and running in the U.S., which is why we are the front lines of the unconventional resource revolution!...”
Yep. You are correct on every point you made. Other places in the world have those shale resources as well, but little, or no, physical infrastructure and their governments are totally insane.
The horizontal drilling and fracking technologies were developed right here in the good old US of A. As I type this, I’m sitting in the middle of the Eagle Ford trend in south Texas working on an oil/gas processing facility overseeing a major equipment/piping upgrade to get this little puppy up to about 30,000bbl/day capacity. Oh, one of the companies down here has bought into the fracking sand business...BIG TIME. Not only for their own corporate use, but for when the rest of the world eventually wakes up and digs their head out of the butts.
Exciting times ahead and it looks like the US is poised to benefit if proper choices are made! Nice tag by the way.