http://www.eurekareport.com.au/iis/iis.nsf/pages/AA9ADFFD772D6AE7...

http://www.eurekareport.com.au/iis/iis.nsf/pages/AA9ADFFD772D6AE7CA2577140078AE78?OpenDocument

New Standard has no current plans to drill on its ground but it is an example of why oil industry experts are more confident about making shale gas discoveries than about finding oil or gas in other rock types: they already know it is there!

The reason they know the gas is there, but not whether it will flow, is because over the past 57 years, since the first Australian oil discovery at Rough Range on the north-west coast, geologists sitting on drilling rigs have observed gas ??kicks?? in shale on equipment lowered down a well.

Ironically, given what??s happening in the US where ExxonMobil last year paid $US41 billion for shale-gas specialist XTO Energy, those gas kicks were never tested because conventional geological wisdom said the gas would never flow from shale ?V so the drillers drilled on, looking for the rocks they knew best.

Today, it is possible to look back at downhole measurements taken in every oil and gas well ever drilled and identify whether there is the potential for gas in shale, with the key test being ??total organic carbon??, or TOC, a term that will become familiar to investors as the hunt expands.

In layman??s terms, TOC is a measure of the amount of organic material in shale with that material (plants, algae and even animals that lived millions of years ago) decomposing over time and often producing methane ?V the most common of the natural gases (propane, butane and ethane are other natural gases).