Jan. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Surging prices for shale gas and oil properties in the
U.S. are turning owners of deposits as far away as Australia into potential
takeover targets.
While shale assets in Texas sold at $25,000 an acre this year
and a holding in Ohio and Pennsylvania changed hands at about $15,000 last
month, shale properties owned by Australia’s Beach Energy Ltd. can be bought for
$406 per acre, according to data compiled by Bloomberg and DNB Markets. Energy
companies are pursuing unconventional assets such as shale after the average
price for Brent oil futures reached a record in 2011 and the cost to find and
develop oil jumped, the data show.
With explorers from Senex Energy Ltd. to Drillsearch Energy Ltd.
also owning pieces of an estimated 400 trillion cubic feet of recoverable
shale-gas resources, Australia is poised to commercialize its holdings on a
“large scale,” according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Bloomberg Business Week
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