By Dan Denning • June 29th, 2011
--Well today is the big day in Greece. The government meets in Parliament to vote on the austerity budget. Meanwhile, police fired tear gas at protestors outside the Parliament building.
--Judging by the positive action in share markets, most investors expect the Greek vote to be a done deal. And most expect the angry Greeks in the streets will go home after the vote and take their government-prescribed medicine. We’ll know soon enough.
--One safe prediction: this is not the last week you’ll read about sovereign debt problems destabilising markets. If not Greece, then Spain. If not Spain, then Italy. If not Italy, then America.
--Meanwhile, the energy market is giving a clear signal about shale gas: it’s looking for more. Reuters reports, "China issued its first shale gas exploration tender with an offer of four blocks to a group of Chinese energy companies, state media reported, as the country kicks off its search for potentially vast reserves of the unconventional resource."
--China’s state-owned oil companies are busy trying to diversify the nation’s energy resources. Shale gas is a natural place to look, if only because China is estimated to have large shale gas reserves. And every cubic foot of shale gas China could produce on its own is one it would not have to import from Russia...or Australia.
--The shale gas bandwagon is picking up new riders in Europe as well. A report in yesterday’s Financial Times says,
"The development of shale gas has transformed the North American energy landscape and its supporters believe unconventional gas has the ability to evolutionise the European market, which is also home to vast resources... The resources hold the potential to cover European gas demand for at least 60 years, according to a study by the European Centre for Energy and Resource Security."
--But stop the presses! And hold the bull market!
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