Ski, you are correct re. Mexico.
Jeff Rubin predicted that Mexico will be finished as an exporter of significance by 2012. The 2017 date is widey regarded as an outside figure.
How the US will make up for the loss of its #3 supplier remains to be seen.
Saudi Arabia, Iraq and tar sands expansion may do the trick.
A more intractable problem may be that of having a failed narco-state next door.

David and Slapout, I agree with Bill on shale gas.
I disagree with Trefgarne on many points, but here are a few:
- He (along with many others) attributes the current glut and low prices to SG. SG is only a small part of overall North American NG supply.
- Contrary to his talk of "an early snow this winter" (ie. high demand??), this fall has been uncommonly warm in eastern Canada. Our winters aren't what they used to be, and NG heating demand has been down for several years.
We also had a very cool summer, hence low demand for NG to power A/C.
- The fact that $4.50 cannot support a SG industry escaped Mr. T.
Art Berman provided a reasoned, meticulous analysis of the economics of SG at the international ASPO conference last month:
http://www.aspo-usa.com/2009proceedi...tober_2009.pdf

Unfortunately, Art's call for critical thinking on SG quickly cost him his job at World Oil.
Furthermore, World Oil's long-standing editor, Perry Fischer, was suddenly fired:
http://petroleumtruthreport.blogspot...er-editor.html

Surely we have a dangerous situation when the only voices that will be tolerated in the oil world are those of the optimists.

Slapout, you are correct on the water issue.
Both SG and shale oil require lots of water, and there are increasing reports of fracking fluids contaminating water-wells.
The top of the Marcellus SG deposit is under the watershed which supplies NYC, so there are growing concerns about allowing drilling in that area despite its excellent SG potential.