Abstract
During the past decade, shale gas developments have changed the energy structure in the US natural gas industry, and the exploration activities for shale gas are also increasing worldwide. According to the papers published in recent years, shale gas resources are quite abundant in China. With the successful experience obtained from North America, many state-of-the-art technologies are brought in and refined for field application. State-owned enterprise, private enterprises and foreign enterprises have all actively participated in the exploitation of shale gas. Compared with US, China faces many more challenges, both geological and above-ground, in the development of shale gas resources.