imho there may be no end to the drilling for a long time but sometime in the next 10-20 years natural gas trains trucks and busses plus electric cars are going to curb demand. But since prices for oil are set globally—that’s not happening soon. What’s more fracking outside the USA in volume won’t take off for imho much before 2020 because the complexity of the process won’t easily transfer. But I could be wrong about that complexity. It may be that after awhile they’ll find it easily reproducible and the opportunities overseas will be more compelling. But right now I don’t read reports of the mid level US companies doing most of the fracking and getting most of the expertise —taking their expertise overseas. For now there’s just too many opportunities apparently here in the USA. But we’ll see.
At least a few US flag merchant ships are being built or converted to burn LNG. The LNG ships that were built in the 1970’s also burned LNG, I believe they captured the evaporating gasses and piped it back to the boilers.
I think, you will see fracking in a few places outside the US... Poland, China, maybe Brazil...but, not enough to challenge the US. Germany and France SHOULD be doing it. But, they’re environmental weenies.
I do think the growth curve will flatten.. there simply aren’t enough physical drilling rigs available to keep up this pace of growth.
Natural gas comes from fracking and Natural Gas accounted for 30% of the total electricity generation in 2012. Plus with the reduction in coal, natural gas usage will increase. Got to charge those electric cars for some other form of energy. Remember it’s all about the BTUs!