I am stunned at the low --- almost farsical --- level of understanding of shale coal gas deposits. There is a great deal of deception, pressure, fear and greed, all wrapped up in one when it comes to energy. We can rattle off all the statistics and be wrong. Russian company makes better profits then others, but it will not have a good market value. Markets, as anyone paying attention lately, are not free. Stock markets are litteraly remote controlled, when traders "buy" millions of shares differentiated only by a fraction of a penny, just to sell them virtually immediately. The prices of oil and gas, as well as the "known" reserves, are manipulated numbers. Enter shale coal gas deposits. Plentiful. Technology is here! But it is a bait for the ignorant and greedy. The whole point in starting in US is not to really do it for real, but to SELL the technology and buy the rights in other countries. I do not believe that such environmental MONSTER will be unleashed on population. The "fracking" technology, that injects water and chemicals (NOT DISCLOSED) into the shale rock to crack it, and release gas, causes other gases to escape into soil and drinking water. For now, methane has come up, but it could be easily carbon monoxide and dioxide. There is no controlling the cracking process. When volcanic activity cracked such rocks in Cameron, the gas escaped first into a lake, and then into the atmosphere and killed thousands farmers who were within 150 meter altitude from the lake. Drilling SHALLOW, is for birds. The "fracking" occurs at the depths BELOW the water table. Given that it is expensive, does not yield much, and DANGEROUS, I think that the hype is just to get licensing agreements with countries that will not mind being poisoned.

Over the course of six months last year, Canada's National Energy Board shifted from a prediction that the decline in conventional gas output would far outstrip new shale supplies, to saying that shale gas could satisfy domestic demand "far into the 21st century" and spur exports of liquefied natural gas. The shifting landscape is forcing investors to rethink projects. A gas shipping terminal in the city of Kitimat on Canada's West Coast was originally planned to import gas, but in 2008 the terminal owners, Kitimat LNG Inc., realized that shale gas could boost Canada's output and redesigned it to export LNG. The C$4.1 billion project is scheduled to begin construction this year, and to begin operation in 2014. Yet the potential shale gas revolution in the U.S. means that Canada will have to find global buyers for any natural gas exports, via Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG): "Our view is that you need all the shale gas, you need all the frontier gas and you probably need LNG [imports] on top of that," TransCanada Chief Operating Officer Russell Girling said at a recent conference in British Columbia. Girling said any excess supplies will be eaten away by the decline in conventional gas, the growing demand from Canada's oil sands industry--which uses natural gas to create steam for bitumen extraction, and new demand from utilities and the transportation sector. Too much gas or not, Canada will likely have to find more customers for its gas, since its traditional buyer, the U.S., is oversupplied. Recent NEB data show that Canadian gas exports to the U.S. declined 11% in the first 11 months of 2009 compared with the same period a year earlier