experience, but shale gas is a bubble--essentially a scam.  

Here is how it works in the US:  

1. You hype a new technology, not mentioning that it is actually an old technology, little used heretofore because it is too expensive.  

2. You accept eager, upfront investment money, and use it too buy drilling leases and drill some wells.  The drilling companies are happy to do this.  They get paid for the work they do, not the success of that work.  

3. You downplay costs and tout your production numbers, which initially are indeed high.  You use the high numbers to draw in more investment.  

4. Just as you wells start into decline (about two years) you cash out, selling leases and wells and options on future opportunities.  You move your new-found money off shore and out of sight:  You have just flipped to the suckers.  

5. If you are a bank, rather than a gas company, you are not done yet.  You have helped with steps 1) through 4) and profitted at each stage.  Now you sell financial securities on the declining wells.  You can do this right up until the bubble pops.  

Notice that while cash has been moved from the suckers to the scammers, at every stage real wealth has been destroyed, for net negative gain.  At the end the ground water is permanently contaminated in a process that drags on for centuries, even if the well has been properly capped--which is in itself too expensive to ever happen.  This loss shows up on nobody's books--certainly not yours.  It's all good!  

The Ukraine will produce food or it will produce five years of high-price natural gas.  It won't do both.  

--Gsianne  

The Fates are kind.