Shale gas: revolution or evolution?

The new industry buzz world is shale gas. And why shouldn it be when the world is overwhelmed by energy and power generation. If it works the way its advertised all over the media, it is believed that the global energy mix could move from the expensive oil and the black soot to cleaner and environment-friendly natural gas. No doubt that the US natural gas market has witnessed a big revolution through the development of shale gas in early 2000s. The matter to brood over is whether Europe and China will be able to replicate a similar modification. According to EIA, China technically has 1,275tcf shale gas reserves while Europe has approximately a total of 639tcf of such. However, very recently Chevron, a big name in the integrated oil and gas industry, has put cold water on shale gas hopes in Europe and China. The group has quite categorically emphasised on vast knowledge gap between the geological conditions of United States, Europe and China. Even though China has one of the largest shale gas reserves in the world, it is still in a nascent stage where the commercial viability of these reserves is a question mark. It will be difficult for Chinese oil companies to acquire the respective expertise as they are new to unconventional extraction systems. Also the US shale reserves generating natural gas were discovered at least 20 years ago, and the current production statistics rely massively on those discovered wells. Moreover, China can face transport and infrastructural issues as pipelines are comparatively much less in China than the US. Apart from the technical difficulties, shale gas in bound to be expensive and with Chinese government keeping gas prices low and controlled, they could push investment away from gas to lucrative oil. In Europe, focus is more on foreign sources rather than indigenous ones. Lack of gas infrastructure, rig supply, fiscal regimes and environmental concerns might hinder the prospects of an early shale gas blitz on Europe. Also the demand in Europe is expected to be stable amid declining domestic production. While at the time when US discovered the green treasure, the limited reserves were driving up prices. Thus it seems that the stage is most likely set for a gradual evolution in the global energy mix rather than an overnight explosion of shale producing gas.