The Impact of Unconventional Gas Resources Revolution on the Global Gas Market, Environment and Energy Security

Natural gas is considered by energy experts as the most promising fossil fuel in the 21st century due to its unique properties, including lower emissions than other fossil fuels; in a way that the International Energy Agency (IEA) entitled, in Energy Outlook Report 2011, the current period as “the Golden Age of Gas”. On the other hand technological advances during the past decade provided taking advantage of the huge volumes of natural gas resources, which in the past were not extractable because of high costs of production and lack of appropriate technology, and caused a significant increase in natural gas production, particularly in North America. This technological evolution, which is referred as “The Revolution of unconventional Gas Resources”, led the United States of America in 2010 the largest natural gas producer in the world before Russia and this country became from a major gas importer to a potential gas exporter.
“The Revolution of unconventional Gas Resources” created major changes in the global gas market factors such as reserves, supply, demand, price, pricing system, contracts and natural gas trade. Following the shale gas revolution, the major energy and natural gas consumers are facing an improved energy supply security because of the increase in energy supply to the world markets, diversification of supply sources, the reduction of dependence on traditional producers and stability of energy prices on the market; traditional producers will face challenges in the field of demand security in the future.