Shale gas Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Shale gas - Essay Example the middle of crisis; an economy struggling with a huge debt problems in the wake of a deadly financial meltdown as well as the damages caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita to the U.S. Gulf natural gas supply infrastructure adding fodder to the skyrocketing crude oil prices in the world market. That although the recession that began with the global financial crisis, fine-tuned by the catastrophic events mentioned, had their effects in lowering the demand for natural gas, the supply of shale gas production, which increased tenfold between 2005 and 2010, tremendously slashed the natural gas prices, in effect boosting/repairing demand in almost all sectors damaged by the unfortunate events above. To be specific, the wellhead prices for US natural gas currently trading at approximately 4 USD/Mbtu was as high as 8 USD/Mbtu and above prior to 2008; a tremendous improvement of the affordability of the commodity irrespective of the final consumer (Spencer, et al. 16). More generally, shale gas has displaced the more expensive and costly sources of energy such as coal, in effect, spurring investments in energy intensive sectors of the economy. Accordingly, hundreds of thousands of new jobs have been created either directly or indirectly by â€Å"reshoring† plants established abroad due to escalating costs on the same and substantially lowering the cost of capital and/or operational costs for fresh businesses; the ready availability of a cheap energy source, massively reducing the US net imports of oil and gas, has more than assured investments of a steady flow of energy with stable prices, thus, ensuring a steady rebounding of employments levels that suffered heavy blows after the events already mentioned (Spencer, et al. 16-17). There are currently more than 20 major facilities for the production of shale gas either under construction or on their final planning phases, all in efforts to use natural gas as fuel; a fact that has boosted inve stors confidence to the effect