Thursday, January 24, 2013

Shale Gas Boom: Australia’s Potential $20 Trillion Discovery

The shale gas boom continues to percolate around the world, this time Australia may have hit on a jackpot.

SOUTH Australia is sitting on oil potentially worth more than $20 trillion, independent reports claim - enough to turn Australia into a self-sufficient fuel producer.

Brisbane company Linc Energy yesterday released two reports, based on drilling and seismic exploration, estimating the amount of oil in the as yet untapped Arckaringa Basin surrounding Coober Pedy ranging from 3.5 billion to 233 billion barrels of oil.

At the higher end, this would be "several times bigger than all of the oil in Australia", Linc managing director Peter Bond said.

This has the potential to turn Australia from an oil importer to an oil exporter.
Technology brought about by free markets has enabled people’s access to shale as alternative fuel. 

Importantly, since Shale gas has been said to be abundant, where reserves are which scattered or distributed around the world, cheap and abundant energy should translate to lower prices and help spur economic growth. Of course there are other benefits of Shale: as previously mentioned environmental friendliness is one. Another is that since shale gas has been mostly driven by free markets this should translate to less onus for taxpayers. Additionally, the dispersed distribution of shale will likely alter geopolitics by reducing dependence on producers governed by despots and the kleptocracy. Finally Shale gas operates on safe technology.

For Asian investors, the impact of Shale so far has been an onrush to Shale related investments in the West, most probably aimed at, not only to profit from the ongoing Shale boom, but likewise to assimilate the technology required for domestic shale exploration.

The Australian discovery may just be one of the latest discoveries not limited to Asia, which recently includes Israel, JapanIndia and even China.

I expect the shale boom to inspire transformative innovation on people's wellbeing. 

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