- Beach Energy has announced shale reserves of 300tcf in the Cooper
- Broker interest is piqued, but not obsessive
- Prices, costs, technology and the long timeframe are all hurdles


By Greg Peel

Three hundred trillion cubic feet. That's the volume of "gas in place" suggested from test drilling at Beach Energy's ((BPT)) acreage in the remote Cooper Basin, known as PEL 218. It's a figure that has Beach executives grinning from ear to ear, has the market rather excited, and has energy sector analysts sitting up to take notice.

How much gas is that? Well if you recall the last milk crate you snaffled from outside a 7eleven, that's about one cubic foot. Now imagine snaffling 300,000,000,000,000 of them. It would be one hell of an an LP collection. That amount of gas is one hundred times Beach Energy's current "proven and probable" reserve base. And if accurate, PEL 218 alone would be enough, Macquarie calculates, to meet Australia's current east coast gas demands for 90 years.

Now we'll all be cooking with gas!