Most Popular
1. Banking Crisis is Stocks Bull Market Buying Opportunity - Nadeem_Walayat
2.The Crypto Signal for the Precious Metals Market - P_Radomski_CFA
3. One Possible Outcome to a New World Order - Raymond_Matison
4.Nvidia Blow Off Top - Flying High like the Phoenix too Close to the Sun - Nadeem_Walayat
5. Apple AAPL Stock Trend and Earnings Analysis - Nadeem_Walayat
6.AI, Stocks, and Gold Stocks – Connected After All - P_Radomski_CFA
7.Stock Market CHEAT SHEET - - Nadeem_Walayat
8.US Debt Ceiling Crisis Smoke and Mirrors Circus - Nadeem_Walayat
9.Silver Price May Explode - Avi_Gilburt
10.More US Banks Could Collapse -- A Lot More- EWI
Last 7 days
Stock Market Volatility (VIX) - 25th Mar 24
Stock Market Investor Sentiment - 25th Mar 24
The Federal Reserve Didn't Do Anything But It Had Plenty to Say - 25th Mar 24
Stock Market Breadth - 24th Mar 24
Stock Market Margin Debt Indicator - 24th Mar 24
It’s Easy to Scream Stocks Bubble! - 24th Mar 24
Stocks: What to Make of All This Insider Selling- 24th Mar 24
Money Supply Continues To Fall, Economy Worsens – Investors Don’t Care - 24th Mar 24
Get an Edge in the Crypto Market with Order Flow - 24th Mar 24
US Presidential Election Cycle and Recessions - 18th Mar 24
US Recession Already Happened in 2022! - 18th Mar 24
AI can now remember everything you say - 18th Mar 24
Bitcoin Crypto Mania 2024 - MicroStrategy MSTR Blow off Top! - 14th Mar 24
Bitcoin Gravy Train Trend Forecast 2024 - 11th Mar 24
Gold and the Long-Term Inflation Cycle - 11th Mar 24
Fed’s Next Intertest Rate Move might not align with popular consensus - 11th Mar 24
Two Reasons The Fed Manipulates Interest Rates - 11th Mar 24
US Dollar Trend 2024 - 9th Mar 2024
The Bond Trade and Interest Rates - 9th Mar 2024
Investors Don’t Believe the Gold Rally, Still Prefer General Stocks - 9th Mar 2024
Paper Gold Vs. Real Gold: It's Important to Know the Difference - 9th Mar 2024
Stocks: What This "Record Extreme" Indicator May Be Signaling - 9th Mar 2024
My 3 Favorite Trade Setups - Elliott Wave Course - 9th Mar 2024
Bitcoin Crypto Bubble Mania! - 4th Mar 2024
US Interest Rates - When WIll the Fed Pivot - 1st Mar 2024
S&P Stock Market Real Earnings Yield - 29th Feb 2024
US Unemployment is a Fake Statistic - 29th Feb 2024
U.S. financial market’s “Weimar phase” impact to your fiat and digital assets - 29th Feb 2024
What a Breakdown in Silver Mining Stocks! What an Opportunity! - 29th Feb 2024
Why AI will Soon become SA - Synthetic Intelligence - The Machine Learning Megatrend - 29th Feb 2024
Keep Calm and Carry on Buying Quantum AI Tech Stocks - 19th Feb 24

Market Oracle FREE Newsletter

How to Protect your Wealth by Investing in AI Tech Stocks

Australia Set for Largest Shale Oil Find of All Time

Commodities / Crude Oil Feb 26, 2013 - 03:14 PM GMT

By: Money_Morning

Commodities

Dr. Kent Moors writes: Over the past few days, I have released information on what could be the largest shale oil find ever recorded.

It's located in an area of Australia called the Arckaringa Basin and contains as much as 233 billion barrels (or more) of recoverable shale oil.


That's more than all of the estimated oil in Iran, Iraq, Canada, or Venezuela. And it's just 30 billion barrels shy of the estimated reserves in all of Saudi Arabia.

The discovery at the Arckaringa basin is so big it's already prompting some observers to begin talking about energy independence for Australia, much in the same way Americans did after similar discoveries in the Bakken, Marcellus, Eagle Ford, and Utica basins.

And there is one small company that controls what is shaping up to be the biggest worldwide oil project to hit in decades.

The Opportunity in the Arckaringa Basin
It's a company called Linc Energy (OTC: LNCGY).

That a company this small is in the driver's seat in a find this big is one of the major new wrinkles in these mega-projects.

It used to be (and we are only talking about four or five years back), that the top international majors would be calling the shots on mega- billion dollar projects like this one.

But what's happening in the Arckaringa Basin is occurring more frequently -- especially in this part of the South Pacific.

Today, small cap companies are controlling access to some of the biggest shale projects on the planet, requiring the big boys to rethink their strategies.

These developments provide individual investors some major opportunities to buy into projects with small companies at low cost or ride in on the backs of the majors and oil field service producers coming in.

And if you learn the right way to invest, there is some serious money to be made down under.

Both shale/tight oil and shale gas have significantly changed the hydrocarbon production landscape. Until recently, the emphasis has been on North American production.

However, studies from the U.S. Geological Survey, the International Energy Agency, and even OPEC itself have all concluded shale oil and gas is prevalent elsewhere in the world.

And that has led to new targets for major development.

The Shale Oil Boom Continues Down Under
For example, a second event is unfolding just north of Australia, where another small company just happens to control access to a massive project. This one is in Papua New Guinea, and it has some of the largest international majors just drooling over the idea of being involved.

However, the parade of big companies seeking a piece of significant projects controlled by much smaller operators hardly ends there, especially in this part of the world.

Chevron (NYSE: CVX) once again made news early yesterday morning by announcing it had agreed to pay as much as $349 million to join Australian minnow Beach Energy (OTC: BCHEY) in two separate projects.

Both are shale gas plays - one in South Australia and the other in Queensland.

Now despite the huge projects Chevron already runs further west (the ones I know quite well from my work there), these two new concessions amount to the company's first foray into Australian shale gas. These are Cooper basin developments, where several projects are into producing shale gas. Chevron is likely to take over controlling interest (as much as 60% in the first), while settling for a bit more than a third in the second.

Beach Energy is an Adelaide-based producer and does have depository receipts trading OTC in New York. However, the issue is that these shares have virtually no liquidity. No shares traded on Friday and the average number for the past three months is just 33 shares a day.

Therefore, there will be a likely big bounce in these shares, but there will be no way to control the rapid price rise and subsequent difficulty in exiting a position. Beach has greater liquidity on the Australian Securities Exchange, but trading on the ASX remains difficult for many non-Australian investors.

Nonetheless, the parade of internationals moving into Australian projects continues. Chevron joins the likes of U.S. companies ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) and Hess (NYSE: HES), Norwegian major Statoil (NYSE: STO) and U.K.'s BG Group (OTC: BRGYY), a more liquid depository receipt opportunity.

To sweeten the pot, the Australian government has recently estimated there may be as much as 400 trillion cubic feet (11.3 trillion cubic meters) of shale gas in the country.

So don't be surprised if there are more such announcements of more big projects controlled by small local companies coming in the near future.

As for the massive find in the Arkaringa Basin, the real investment play is with the companies coming in to provide the essential working capital for field development and to provide the essential field services to pull it all off.

You can learn more about this exciting new find by clicking here.

Source :http://moneymorning.com/2013/02/26/the-arckaringa-basin-could-be-the-largest-shale-oil-find-of-all-time/

Money Morning/The Money Map Report

©2013 Monument Street Publishing. All Rights Reserved. Protected by copyright laws of the United States and international treaties. Any reproduction, copying, or redistribution (electronic or otherwise, including on the world wide web), of content from this website, in whole or in part, is strictly prohibited without the express written permission of Monument Street Publishing. 105 West Monument Street, Baltimore MD 21201, Email: customerservice@moneymorning.com

Disclaimer: Nothing published by Money Morning should be considered personalized investment advice. Although our employees may answer your general customer service questions, they are not licensed under securities laws to address your particular investment situation. No communication by our employees to you should be deemed as personalized investent advice. We expressly forbid our writers from having a financial interest in any security recommended to our readers. All of our employees and agents must wait 24 hours after on-line publication, or after the mailing of printed-only publication prior to following an initial recommendation. Any investments recommended by Money Morning should be made only after consulting with your investment advisor and only after reviewing the prospectus or financial statements of the company.

Money Morning Archive

© 2005-2022 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.


Post Comment

Only logged in users are allowed to post comments. Register/ Log in