How U.S. know-how is fracking Australia into a gas boom, from Texas oilmen to Trump’s energy secretary

As the U.S. shale oil and gas revolution took off two decades ago, Australia took notice and wondered whether the boom could be replicated down under.

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.

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.

Sheffield saw the Beetaloo’s upside, and its similarity to the Appalachia’s 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.

“I just remember feeling deflated,” Bryan Sheffield told Fortune .

“He got into the Beetaloo really early and cheap.

I remember thinking to myself, ‘He’s just running circles around me.’” McClendon died in a car accident a year later, and more setbacks would soon befall the basin.