Shale revolution ‘impacting global energy equation’

The shale revolution unraveling before our very eyes is impacting the entire global energy equation, Syed Rashid Husain, an energy analyst and specialist, said.
He was speaking on ‘The emerging shale oil and gas revolution’ at a technical seminar organized by the Institution of Engineers Pakistan, Saudi Arabian Center, Eastern Province sub center, in Dhahran.
Kamal Al-Hamad, GM, Saudi Council of Engineers, Eastern Province, was the chief guest.
A number of Saudi and expatriate guests were also present at the event besides engineers from Jordan, Syria and Philippines.
In his presentation, Rashid Husain highlighted the role of technology in bringing this resource to the fore. People had known of shale resources for a long time.
Rashid also said: “Fadhil Chalabi, former OPEC deputy secretary general and former Iraqi deputy oil minister who later became a member of the Center for Global Energy Studies (CGES) team, talked of shale resources long time back, underlining there was no dearth of resources.”
The issue was how to exploit this resource. Two major developments helped the engineers crack these formations — horizontal drilling and the hydraulic fracturing (fracking).
These two technologies made exploiting shale resources feasible.
Indeed with crude market prices staying in three digits, for some time now, also helped extracting this resource economically viable.
Arshad Aziz earlier gave an overview of IEP activities, including scholarships to needy engineering students in Pakistan. Tariq bin Zafar introduced the speaker. Rizwan Ahmad, chairman IEP SAC, Eastern Province Center, proposed the vote of thanks.