There is a great deal of excitement in the shale patch in the USA. The culprit; exploration and production companies using horizontal drilling techniques to extract oil and gas from previously uneconomic shallow resource targets (shale) and making oversized profits in the process.

There are several big shale plays in the US, the best known being; Haynesville, Bakken, Eagle Ford, Barnett, Marcellus and Niobrara. Most of these are predominantly natural gas reservoirs and, since natural gas is not very transportable, and the US has enormous quantities of it, the US natural gas market will likely experience oversupply from time to time with limited upside profitability for the producers.

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