The role of shale gas in the global energy

The rapid increase of the shale gas production in the USA has influenced significantly the global energy market. Primarily, this is connected with a sharp decrease of natural gas import by the USA. Moreover, the scenarios of the US shale gas supply to the European market that turned out to be under strong impact of the “shale revolution” have been discussed actively. Other world countries possessing shale gas reserves are also planning to increase its production. Although the first results of export of the “shale revolution” have shown that quite unlikely the US experience of this area will be repeated in the next decade, but, still, with regard to the volumes of the shale gas production the global energy market is already altering notably. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016.