Provincial government geologists have confirmed Manitoba has shale gas worth exploring, the kind of gas that’s caused a continent-wide controversy over fracking. But it might be a decade before Manitoba’s gas catches the interest of energy companies looking for their next drilling targets. “We do have gas in our shale,” said Michelle Nicolas, a geologist [...]
The natural gas industry is undergoing continuous growth on a global scale. One of the many factors reshaping the energy market is the potential represented by substantial reserves of shale gas in North America. Their effect on use and demand, in terms of lower prices and environmental advantages, is likely to drive ongoing expansion. Mexico [...]
Starting Feb. 1, drilling operators in Texas will have to report many of the chemicals used in the process known as hydraulic fracturing. Environmentalists and landowners are looking forward to learning what acids, hydroxides and other materials have gone into a given well. But a less-publicized part of the new regulation is what some experts [...]
The race for new-energy dominance is officially on. Earlier this month two of China’s oil giants, Sinopec and Cnooc, as well as Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil company, Saudi Aramco, announced they would all seek to buy the same 30 percent stake in American hydraulic-fracturing-services firm Frac Tech Holdings LLC. The announcements, arriving amidst great excitement [...]
Argentina’s powerful planning minister signaled Monday the government isn’t willing to make price concessions to oil and gas companies in exchange for swifter development of the country’s vast unconventional hydrocarbon resources. Companies like YPF SA have made a number of important discoveries of shale oil and gas in the last year. But analysts say the [...]
No issue in Latin America this year may be more fraught with volatility than energy. The Mayan calendar prophesied the end of the world this December. But for Latin America’s energy scene, the year is shaping up to be anything but a march toward the end of time. There are several themes to consider as 2012 unfolds. [...]
Petrobras announced recently that its proven reserves of oil, condensate and natural gas rose 2.7 percent in 2011 to 16.4 billion barrels of oil equivalent, based on criteria used by the Brazilian National Petroleum Agency (ANP) and the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE). Source: Petrobras
Qatar Petroleum (QP) could reconfigure its US import terminal to export gas in a bid to cash in on the US supply glut arising from the shale gas revolution, says one of Qatar’s prime ministers. The multibillion-dollar facility was procured before the US began producing abundant quantities of natural gas from hydraulic fracturing – or [...]
A group of the nation’s leading experts on energy and the environment are at Duke this week attending a workshop to try to ferret out the facts (and tamp down the hype) around shale gas and fracking, the controversial method for extracting natural gas trapped in shale deposits. With yesterday’s sessions held as a public [...]
From Australia and China to South Africa and Eastern Europe, the global economy is being transformed by the extraction of huge amounts of natural gas from shale rock. The United States has played a major part in this revolution; new “plays,” as fields of shale gas are known, are now producing in Texas, Louisiana, Illinois, [...]
