Quartz: Shale gas has shaken up the world, and now the world wants in on the action

Not a whiff of US shale gas has left the nation’s shores in the 3- or 4-year-old boom. Relatively little may ever be exported. Yet the disturbance that shale gas and oil have created can make them seem just as ubiquitous as the iPhone. In Europe, US shale has made the air dirtier, manufacturing less competitive, and Russia vulnerable. They have weakened OPEC’s influence on global oil and gas pricing (paywall), and undermined distant nations including Australia and Qatar.

No wonder there is a rush among nations to duplicate the shale boom. On Dec. 13, the UK approved hydraulic fracturing, the method used to drill in shale, and Germany blocked an attempt to ban it. China has accelerated licensing to develop its shale gas. Australia, already set to become the world’s largest exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG), is examining how to develop its shale, too.

All want what the US has: a glut so large that gas sells for a third Europe’s price, and a fifth of Asia’s water-borne rate for LNG. US-benchmark crude oil sells for less than $87 a barrel, compared with $109 for the Brent sold in the rest of the world. At such prices, US carbon emissions are down to 1992 levels, and are still dropping, because gas is much cheaper to burn than coal in power plants. Blue-chip petro-chemical makers such as Dow, ChevronPhillips and ExxonMobil are planning gigantic new US plants that take advantage of the cheap gas feedstock, while European manufacturers, paying much more for raw materials, fall behind incompetitiveness.  MORE