Thursday, January 2, 2014

Shale Oil Basins Around the World

I've always been intrigued by the Paris Basin but that may be because it's northern limits are the Champagne region while the southeastern escarpment is Burgandy.
Or it might be the 100 billion bbls. estimate.*
Anyhoo, the French government has banned fracking since 2011 and as recently as late November was restricting exploration.
Maybe it's time for the Algerian wines to come into their own (again).

From the Energy Information Administration:

map of world shale oil and gas formations, as explained in the article text.
Source: U.S. basins from U.S. Energy Information Administration and United States Geological Survey; other basins from Advanced Resources International (ARI) based on data from various published studies.
Note: Click to enlarge.

For the next two weeks (Dec. 23 - Jan. 3), Today in Energy will feature a selection of our favorite articles from 2013. Today's article was originally published on June 10.

Estimated shale oil and shale gas resources in the United States and in 137 shale formations in 41 other countries represent 10% of the world's crude oil and 32% of the world's natural gas technically recoverable resources, or those that can be produced using current technology without reference to economic
profitability, according to a new EIA-sponsored study (see Table 1) released today (June 10, 2013).
Table of technically recoverable shale oil and shale gas resources, as explained in the article text.

More than half of the identified shale oil resources outside the United States are concentrated in four countries—Russia, China, Argentina, and Libya—while more than half of the non-U.S. shale gas resources are concentrated in five countries—China, Argentina, Algeria, Canada, and Mexico. The United States is ranked second after Russia for shale oil resources and fourth after Algeria for shale gas resources when compared with the 41 countries assessed (see Tables 2 & 3).
...MUCH MORE

*The basin itself isn't so hot for wine production, see 2010's "Sancerre, Chablis and 100 Billion Barrels of Oil (TRGL; HES)":
There's not a lot of first quality wine grown in the Paris basin, the AOC's in the headline are close geographically but a long way from Romanée-Conti....