China may have more shale gas than found in US

The geographic proliferation of shale gas and tight oil is inevitable
This article in the Globe & Mail is worth a read. Though the proliferation of technologies for shale gas and tight oil will spread around the world, it takes more then just technology to make the process of extracting these resources work – mainly  water.
For example, China may have more shale gas than that found in all of the USA, but it’s in the arid eastern regions where water is scarce. But with time, this too is changing with the evolution of new technologies that recover and recycle 99% of the fluids used in the fracking process.
Time will tell but history has shown that opportunities are created by providing solutions to problems.
The geographic proliferation of shale gas and tight oil is inevitable
This question keeps getting repeated: “Will shale gas and tight oil technologies proliferate beyond North America?”
Of course they will. There is no precedent for game-changing innovations in any business to respect territorial boundaries. So some remaining questions are, under what conditions will shale gas and tight oil be developed in other countries, how long will it take, and where first?
With respect to necessary conditions, it seems Texas has the right stuff. At a major conference in Dallas last week, a few thousand exuberant U.S. oil and gas executives were gushing over recent production growth from unconventional resources.
North Dakota’s Bakken seems like yesterday’s news as attention now shines on the productive oil potential of the legendary Texas Permian Basin.
The stock, U.S. oil man’s answer to what drives such domestic exploration frenzy, is the American principle of landowners’ mineral rights – if you own the land on the surface you also have title to the oil and gas beneath your feet.
This alignment of financial interests between private landowners and oil companies lubricates the wheels of capitalism like nowhere else. Ergo, the converse argument goes, we are unlikely to see meaningful shale gas or tight oil development in other parts of the world, where no such subsurface benefits accrue to the landowner.
But there are flaws in this line of thinking.
From the Globe & Mail

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