Bloomberg: Asian Tigers Stalk U.S Gas as Louisiana Shale Profits Taper

DeSoto Parish, Louisiana, has a problem. The solution may lie 10,000 miles away in Jakarta.

A rustic stretch of bayous and timberland, DeSoto and other communities in the Haynesville shale formation have become victims of the energy industry’s success in extracting natural gas from deeply buried rock.

Even as U.S. gas production surges to a record, outpacing domestic demand, Haynesville output has slumped 40 percent since 2011 amid falling prices as companies shift rigs to reservoirs richer in lucrative oil and gas liquids. Tax revenue has tumbled by the same percentage over the past two years from a record $50 million in the parish, home to Civil War battlefields and Billy B’s Cajun Grill.

In Jakarta, a city of 10 million, high-rise buildings crowd the skyline and auto-rickshaws, motorcycles and taxis vie for space on gridlocked roads. Indonesia’s energy use may more than double from 2010 through 2035, according to the Asian Development Bank. As early as next year, cargoes of liquefied natural gas shipped from Gulf Coast terminals to fast-growing Asian countries will propel the region into the ranks of global gas exporters such as Qatar and Australia for the first time. MORE

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