Bismarck Tribune: European shale oil: Huge potential, huge challenges

The West's threat to levy sanctions on the Russian Federation for its March 2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula could come at calamitous consequences - on the other hand it might encourage some European countries to develop their tight shale gas resources by using Bakken-bred technology.

Russia's export of oil and natural gas supplies to the European Union constitutes a large share of its economic lifeblood - likewise, its European neighbors can ill risk an energy supply disruption.

The 28-member European Union's (EU) gross domestic product (GDP) is essentially equal to that of the United States - about $17 trillion. The European Union is the world's second largest energy consumer, using about 75 percent as much as the United States. However, the EU harbors only about 2 percent of the globe's proven crude oil resources and just 4 percent of its conventional natural gas.
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