Australia Seen a Decade Away From Large-Scale Shale Production

Australian shale explorers may be a decade away from producing oil and gas on a large scale because of obstacles ranging from a lack of drilling equipment to higher labor and infrastructure costs, Wood Mackenzie Ltd. said.

“The only factor that could change that significantly is if there’s a liquids-rich play that really drove the need to rapidly bring in the rigs,” Andrew McManus, the Sydney-based vice president of Australasia energy consulting at Wood Mackenzie, said in an interview. “Then you can see the value proposition and would want to fast-track that.”