A squabble in the energy industry about the true potential for shale gas, discussed in this column this month, has filtered through to the attention of some of the institutional investors in energy companies. This tremor of scepticism has not yet affected the ability of the large gas exploration and production companies to finance their ambitious capital spending programmes.
One of the shale doubters who was quoted in this space, consulting geologist Arthur Berman, is no longer published in the pages of World Oil, an American trade journal. Its publisher, John Royall, says: "Arthur had written about shale for a year and it was time to move on." The journal's editor was dismissed at about the same time.
