U.S. Shale Gas Diminishes Petro-Powers
Rising U.S. natural gas production from shale has weakened Russia's ability to wield an "energy weapon" over its European customers, a U.S. study says.
A report by the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University titled "Shale Gas and U.S. National Security," investigated the role that U.S. shale gas will play in global energy markets as global primary energy use shifts increasingly to natural gas.
The study concludes that shale gas will diminish the petro-power of major natural gas producers and it will be a major factor limiting global dependence on natural gas supplies from the same unstable regions that are currently uncertain sources of the global supply of oil.
"The geopolitical repercussions of expanding U.S. shale gas production are going to be enormous," said Amy Myers Jaffe, one of the authors of the study.
"By increasing alternative supplies to Europe in the form of liquefied natural gas displaced from the U.S. market, the petro-power of Russia, Venezuela and Iran is faltering on the back of plentiful American natural gas supply," she said.
The study states that Russia's natural gas market share in Western Europe will decline to as little as 13 percent by 2040, down from 27 percent in 2009.
The study predicts U.S. shale production will more than quadruple by 2040 from 2010, reaching more than 50 percent of total U.S. natural gas production by the 2030s.
"The idea that shale gas is a flash-in-the-pan is simply incorrect," co-author Kenneth Medlock III said. "The geologic data on the shale resource is hard science and the innovations that have occurred in the field to make this resource accessible are nothing short of game-changing."