Northwest Canada’s remote Liard Basin is the world’s ninth largest shale gas resource, according to a new assessment released by Canadian regulators on Wednesday, although it may take years to develop given depressed global energy prices. The basin, mostly situated in British Columbia but also straddling the Yukon and Northwest Territories borders, is estimated to contain 219 trillion cubic feet of marketable, unconventional natural gas. That makes it the second largest gas resource in Canada behind the Montney formation in British Columbia and Alberta, and among the biggest shale gas plays in the world. “We thought the resource was going to be big based on its characteristics, it’s so deep and so heavily pressured. But we didn’t think it would be this big,” said Mike Johnson, technical leader of hydrocarbon resources at the National Energy Board, the country’s oil and gas regulator. The world’s largest shale gas play is […]