In September, the effort began to pay off, thanks to the arrival of American oilmen. The first commercial natural gas deliveries from the Beetaloo Basin started flowing to the energy-hungry Northern Territory. The potential is far greater, and little-known Tamboran Resources and Daly Waters Energy had to clear years of roadblocks to get here.<\/p>\n
Sydney startup Tamboran first hired an American ExxonMobil and Chevron veteran as its CEO in 2013. In 2014, Texas oil legend Scott Sheffield joined the board of Aussie natural gas player Santos. He was intrigued by the prospect of bringing shale drilling and fracking expertise to the outback, particularly the sparsely populated reserve with a peculiar name: the Beetaloo Basin.<\/p>\n
Sheffield saw the Beetaloo\u2019s upside, and its similarity to the Appalachia\u2019s Marcellus Shale. He brought it to the attention of his son, Bryan, also a Texas oil CEO. Bryan was interested but too busy taking his company, Parsley Energy, public. A few months later, shale pioneer Aubrey McClendon took a small land position in the Beetaloo and Bryan read about it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just remember feeling deflated,\u201d Bryan Sheffield told Fortune<\/em>. \u201cHe got into the Beetaloo really early and cheap. I remember thinking to myself, \u2018He\u2019s just running circles around me.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n McClendon died in a car accident a year later, and more setbacks would soon befall the basin. Amid the global pushback to fracking, the Northern Territory imposed a moratorium from 2016 to 2018. Santos and others had drilled with limited results but couldn\u2019t replicate the American formula. COVID-19 then tanked global exploration budgets and most companies\u2019 interest in the Beetaloo. Parsley suffered in the pandemic and was sold to Scott\u2019s company, Pioneer Natural Resources, for $4.5 billion. Two years ago, ExxonMobil bought Pioneer for $60 billion, the largest U.S. oil deal of the century.<\/p>\n After the pandemic, Bryan Sheffield\u2019s top geologist from Parsley again raised the Beetaloo. This time, Sheffield, armed with his own startup private equity firm, Formentera Partners, took the lead.<\/p>\n \u201cThis play keeps coming up. This is three times,\u201d Bryan Sheffield said. It felt like a sign.<\/p>\n After investing heavily in the small Aussie gas players, Tamboran and Beetaloo Energy, Sheffield also started his own Australian subsidiary, Daly Waters Energy.<\/p>\n Fast forward four years, partners Daly Waters and Tamboran announced the first natural gas sales ever from the Beetaloo in September. The milestone shows the basin can deliver, but it still must prove it can become economic over the long term.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a total gamechanger,\u201d Sheffield said. Five wells are now ramping up. \u201cWe created revenue. This whole time, the past five years, we have not had $1 coming back to us.\u201d<\/p>\n The timing matters, both for the money-losing companies and for Australia, which could face natural gas shortfalls in the coming years. The U.S., Australia, and Qatar are by far the top liquefied natural gas exporters. Qatar is largely offline now because of the Iran war, and more of Australia\u2019s offshore gas fields are drying up. The answer may lie onshore, in Beetaloo shale.<\/p>\n Sheffield\u2019s capital influx was critical, but so was recruiting top American oilfield services players with shale expertise. Drilling leader Helmerich & Payne (H&P), tools and services giant Baker Hughes, and fracking leader Liberty Energy\u2014the company cofounded by U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright\u2014all took ownership stakes in Tamboran. Beetaloo Energy recently contracted with Halliburton.<\/p>\n \u201cApplying the American [fracking] recipe to another country is the way forward,\u201d Sheffield said. A newly built pipeline and gas processing plant now move the gas. \u201cThe big problem was the lack of service companies and infrastructure. Talking the service companies into moving into this play was key to unlocking it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s kind of like in that movie, \u2018Field of Dreams,\u201d he added. \u201c\u2019If you build it, they will come.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Formentera Partners<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n A 1979 minerals drilling program triggered an accidental gas blowout in the Beetaloo. That drew the attention of U.S. oil and gas power Amoco, later acquired by BP, which drilled a test well in 1984. It came up dry. Others tried and failed too, despite survey data showing the basin\u2019s gassy potential.<\/p>\n That was still 20 years before U.S. shale operators would crack the code for shale rock with the right mix of horizontal drilling and slickwater fracking. Slickwater uses a mix of water, sand, and thin, friction-reducing chemicals rather than thicker gels to shatter dense shale rock deep underground and free the gas.<\/p>\n In 2008, in Texas, geologist and Petrohawk Energy cofounder Dick Stoneburner\u2014a great name for a shale rock expert\u2014helped pioneer drilling and fracking and led the discovery of the Eagle Ford Shale oil boom in South Texas. Three years later, Australian mining giant BHP bought Petrohawk for $12 billion as its entry into U.S. shale. Stoneburner was contractually required to assist with the transition, which brought him to Australia.<\/p>\n Once free of his BHP obligation, he was recruited to Tamboran\u2019s board in 2014. That was the year Santos drilled its first Beetaloo test well using modified shale techniques. The results were modest and didn\u2019t wow investors, but they remained promising.<\/p>\n \u201cI got intrigued,\u201d Stoneburner told Fortune<\/em>. \u201cSantos had limited shale experience, really none. They had a big learning curve.\u201d<\/p>\n Stoneburner saw Santos\u2019 flaws and, eventually, so did Bryan Sheffield. The wells needed wider diameters (wider casing) and slickwater fracking, not gelled fluids, to sustain enough pressure to produce ample gas flows. That required equipment available only in the U.S.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is when I knew the play was going to work. They just weren\u2019t doing it right,\u201d Sheffield said. They discovered Australian rigs could only accommodate smaller diameters. \u201cThat\u2019s when I knew I had to talk a rig company into moving horizontal rigs to Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n The pitch was easier than expected. Coming out of the pandemic, services companies had excess equipment and were eyeing growth. H&P shipped a high-specification rig, Chris Wright\u2019s Liberty brought a fracking fleet, and Baker Hughes supplied tools and services. \u201cIt\u2019s not off-the-shelf stuff. So it\u2019s all worked out very, very well,\u201d Stoneburner said.<\/p>\n Sheffield was first impressed by the detailed report on the Beetaloo put together by his former geologist, Tom Layman. After the pandemic, he was put in touch with Stoneburner. They knew of each other but hadn\u2019t met in person. Sheffield then met Tamboran\u2019s CEO at the time, Alabama native Joel Riddle.<\/p>\n Rather than only invest in Tamboran, Sheffield bought stakes in Beetaloo Energy and Falcon Oil & Gas, which was acquired by Tamboran earlier this year. He also formed Daly Waters.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was ready to go,\u201d Stoneburner said, surprised by Sheffield\u2019s speed and aggressiveness.<\/p>\n The largest acreage holder in the Beetaloo was Australian utility Origin Energy. It lacked shale experience and had no clear plan for the land. Under investor pressure to decarbonize and avoid fracking, Origin weighed selling.<\/p>\n In 2022, Tamboran, flush with Sheffield\u2019s capital, pounced. The group acquired Origin for just over $40 million, plus a portion of future royalties, and became the basin\u2019s top player. Sheffield and Stoneburner credit Riddle with getting the deal done.<\/p>\n \u201cOrigin was a really huge domino to fall,\u201d Stoneburner said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe split the deal because it was too much for [Tamboran] to take on alone, and I kind of just paid out of my family office,\u201d Sheffield elaborated. Tamboran and Formentera-backed Daly Waters essentially halved the acreage, and Sheffield forming a joint venture on Tamboran\u2019s operations. Today he controls nearly 10% of Tamboran stock.<\/p>\n Formentera\u2019s usual strategy is \u201csingles and doubles\u201d in mature U.S. shale basins, and Sheffield\u2019s early Australian equity stakes followed that approach. The Origin deal changed that.<\/p>\n \u201cI knew my investors would not like the Beetaloo because there\u2019s a lot of risk,\u201d Sheffield said. \u201cThe pension funds and the endowments, they did not invest.\u00a0It was just too risky for them. The Beetaloo is the home run product, and it\u2019s more tailored toward family offices.\u201d<\/p>\n Since the Origin deal closed, Tamboran and Daly Waters have brought in their services partners to Australia, built a pipeline and processing facility, finished early permitting, and developed the pilot project, Shenandoah South. It is now finally online and poised to ramp up. Daly Waters plans to add a second H&P rig next year.<\/p>\n Japan\u2019s INPEX became a major investor early this year, supporting the eventual gas supply to Australia\u2019s LNG facilities serving Japan and the rest of Asia, especially INPEX\u2019s Ichthys LNG hub in northwestern Australia. Tamboran also is a joint venture partner with Santos, which operates two LNG facilities the Beetaloo could supply: Darwin LNG and Gladstone LNG.<\/p>\n Last year, Tamboran made a change and removed Riddle as CEO, naming Stoneburner interim CEO. Scott Sheffield joined the board at the same time. He had served only three years on Santos\u2019 board. Riddle is rightfully credited with building Tamboran up, but he also clashed with partners.<\/p>\n \u201cI was there to help mend relationships,\u201d Stoneburner said, which led to Tamboran\u2019s Falcon acquisition.<\/p>\n In January, Tamboran hired Houston-based Todd Abbott\u2014a 15-year veteran under Scott Sheffield\u2019s Pioneer and a friend of Stoneburner. Bryan Sheffield also backed the move. \u201cI was trained as an oilman underneath Scott Sheffield and his people, and Todd Abbott is the exact same,\u201d he said. \u201cWe come from the same learning curves.\u201d<\/p>\n Abbott read last year\u2019s news of Stoneburner\u2019s interim role and sent a text. \u201cHe just replied back, \u2018We should talk,\u2019\u201d Abbott told Fortune<\/em>.<\/p>\n Formentera Partners<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n Abbott\u2019s most fun years were the \u201cgrow, grow, grow\u201d days of the Permian Basin\u2019s early shale oil boom at Pioneer. Now, he said, U.S. shale is about, \u201cHow do I get another penny out of it?\u201d each day. Tamboran offers a chance to build a pioneering position in a basin again, a \u201conce-in-a-lifetime opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFirst production is the really big milestone,\u201d Abbott said of the Beetaloo. \u201cBut it\u2019s certainly not the finish line. It\u2019s more of the starting line.\u201d<\/p>\n The Beetaloo\u2019s rock closely resembles the Marcellus Shale of Pennsylvania and West Virginia, though the Beetaloo is 1.3 billion years old versus the Marcellus\u2019 nearly 400 million.<\/p>\n Early well results are promising, Abbott said, but more are needed in the coming weeks and months to attract new investors and partners. Tamboran admits it needs a larger partner to keep scaling. Its stock is up more than 25% this year, but a new auditor\u2019s report still flags its financial viability as a \u201cgoing concern.\u201d It isn\u2019t profitable yet and is only now booking first revenue. \u201cWe\u2019re out looking for the right strategic partner for the long term,\u201d Abbott said.<\/p>\n Production is ramping up to 40 million cubic feet of gas per day. The plan is to grow to 100 million in 2028, once a gas-processing expansion is complete. The goal after that is more drilling and another pipeline by 2030. That would supply more Australia domestic gas beyond the Northern Territory and feed LNG exports. Until now, the territory has relied on emergency contracts with LNG exporters for gas-fired electricity.<\/p>\n \u201cOnce it\u2019s fully connected, the Beetaloo is multiple times large enough to supply the Australian domestic market. It takes care of the expected shortage,\u201d Abbott said. \u201cBut to really get this basin up to the scale, it needs LNG export access.\u201d<\/p>\n Australian entrepreneur Patrick Elliott founded Tamboran in 2009 and remains on the board, but the Beetaloo quickly became an American-Aussie venture. \u201cSeventeen years is a long time, but there was a lot of work to do, and it\u2019s accelerating now,\u201d Abbott said. \u201cIt\u2019s an exponential curve, and you\u2019re starting to see real traction.\u201d<\/p>\n Nothing has underscored the Beetaloo\u2019s potential this year more than the Iran war, which has kept Qatar\u2019s LNG exports largely offline. That leaves the the world, especially Asia-Pacific, heavily dependent on U.S. and Australian LNG, and Australia will need more natural gas to ship. \u201cIt has focused everyone on the need for diversifying,\u201d Abbott said. \u201cSupply chains are critical, and energy security is national security.\u201d He added that Australia can supply Asia more cheaply than the U.S. because of shorter shipping distances.<\/p>\n About 75% of Australia\u2019s natural gas production is offshore, which limits growth. The rest was onshore coalbed methane, or coal seam gas, and those resources aren\u2019t in growth mode either.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are really not a lot of other sources of this scale in the Asia-Pacific that can do it,\u201d Abbott said. \u201cI think it really put eyes on Australia and on the Beetaloo at a pretty critical moment for us.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n #U.S #knowhow #fracking #Australia #gas #boom #Texas #oilmen #Trumps #energy #leader<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As the U.S. shale oil and gas … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6433,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1068,796,424,521,5438,718,9523,1552,3715,9524,2575,277,687],"class_list":["post-6432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance-news","tag-australia","tag-boom","tag-energy","tag-environment","tag-fracking","tag-gas","tag-knowhow","tag-leader","tag-liquified-natural-gas","tag-oilmen","tag-texas","tag-trumps","tag-u-s"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Sep-25-Drill-Rig-e1791396294795.jpg?format=webp&w=1440&quality=75\"\/)
<\/div>A basin that long defied drillers<\/h2>\n
Origin of the domino<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"Formentera](\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/AEP-Map_Bryan-e1791396442733.jpeg?format=webp&w=1440&quality=75\"\/)
<\/div>At the starting line<\/h2>\n