Shale exploration outside the US looks set to get a further boost from renewed concerns over energy security sparked by the war in the Middle East.
While efforts to tap international shale plays largely faltered in the past decade, mostly because of the vast trove of untapped shale riches available in the Permian and other US basins, companies have started to look further afield. The industry has been emboldened by recent successes such as Argentina's Vaca Muerta basin, which has already attracted US independent Continental Resources, founded by shale billionaire Harold Hamm. "We finally have a good example of making a shale play work outside North America, so that gives hope to investors that would like to scale outside," energy consultancy Enverus head of global research Andy McConn says.
The industry is also taking advantage of improved technology and better access to data, and is being more selective about where to go, given bans on hydraulic fracturing and regulatory hurdles in parts of Europe that held up exploration in the past. "Explorers know the countries to avoid," consultancy Wood Mackenzie vice-president of upstream research Robert Clarke says. "Companies also have a better understanding of supply chain risks, such as red tape that restricts the import of critical drilling and completion equipment."
In addition to Argentina, Continental is looking to develop oil and gas resources in southeast and northwest Turkey in a partnership with Turkish state-owned upstream firm TPAO. The Vaca Muerta's potential is "great", Hamm told an investment conference in New York last month, adding that it is now a question of building up confidence one well at a time. "Right now, we've kind of lit the fuse," he said. US independent EOG was last year awarded an onshore concession in the UAE for unconventional oil, and it has partnered with state-owned Babco Energies in an onshore unconventional gas play in Bahrain.
No place like away from home
As US shale growth moderates and the latest phase of industry consolidation having largely run its course, operators may face pressure to venture abroad. But the international push will likely be gradual and spending limited until prospects are "de-risked" geologically and politically, Enverus' McConn says. The Middle East conflict has boosted commodity prices, which may support the development of other shale regions that are more costly to develop than US shale, which is in its mature phase and offers economies of scale. "In order to incentivise shale-specific equipment and personnel to move from North America to these other countries, or to be built up organically in these other countries, they're going to command a higher price," McConn says.
Oil field services firms have also been eager to tap new opportunities offered by international shale exploration. Oil services giant Halliburton announced this month it had won a multi-billion dollar contract from Argentina's state-owned YPF to provide well completions services in Vaca Muerta.
Not all shale firms are keen to try their luck overseas, including some of the larger operators that have their hands full after recent acquisitions. US independent Diamondback Energy talked up its "very good long-duration" inventory in the Permian earlier this year. "There may be good rock around the world, but there's a lot of other issues that come with that rock," chief executive Kaes Van't Hof said.
But some US firms may be interested in applying technology honed in domestic plays to other markets, University of Houston economics professor Ed Hirs says. "I don't know that it's a foothold... It's very similar to how offshore development propagated from the companies that learned how to do it in the Gulf of Mexico."
