All the pieces are in place for fracking to start back up in the UK after a five year hiatus.

The Commerce Department permitted two companies to start exporting oil from Texas’s Eagle Ford shale formation this week, and the firms could begin sending what is essentially unrefined oil abroad in August, the first time in nearly forty years.

Russia can’t tap its massive shale hydrocarbon reserves without Western technology, and that’s led some to speculate that withholding the necessary technical know-how could be a weapon against Putin. But the West looks too divided—and the economic rationale for oil majors to partner with the Russians seems too strong—for us to count this as an arrow in our quiver.

A Chinese oil firm says it will produce more shale gas sooner than expected. Beijing has to overcome a number of hurdles, both natural and otherwise, to reach its shale potential, but where there’s a will, there’s a way.

Here’s a stark example of the transformative power of shale: a Gulf petrostate is mulling American gas imports. The United Arab Emirates lays claim to the world’s seventh-largest proven reserves of natural gas, but it’s finding it difficult to resist the allure of cheap American shale gas.