So far this year, the price of natural gas at Henry Hub has been deplorable for producers, only $1.96, the lowest price seen for the first half since 1999, according to Reuters. Regardless of what demand is or becomes, the U.S. is blessed with an overabundant gas supply that will keep a lid on gas prices. So now, enter stage left, another big play: the Mancos Shale, some 4,000 feet thick in the Piceance Basin in western Colorado. Producers with leases there naturally hope to develop it, and they’re investigating ways to export it to Asia.

In June, the U.S. Geological Survey delivered an updated estimate of the gas resources in the Piceance Basin that are technically recoverable, and it was a dramatic report to be sure: USGS revised upward the mean recoverable resource in the basin to 66 Tcf--up from a mere 1.6 Tcf. The old number dated from 2003, well before the latest technologies for fracking and producing from shales and tight gas sands came into widespread use.

“If you live and work in western Colorado, this is exhilarating news,” said David Ludlam, the executive director of the West Slope Colorado Oil & Gas Association. He called it “The 66-Tcf Game-Changer.”

Well, maybe not in the short term, for who would drill a well when pipeline access is challenged, prices are below two bucks, and the end use market is not clearly defined? Geologists have always known these resources were present—it is the recoverable amount based on drilling economics that changes over time. The USGS has been studying all basins in turn in light of horizontal drilling and advanced fracturing, taking note of the thousands of wells that have been fracked in the past 10 years, each being one more data point on the government’s learning curve. It updated its Marcellus estimate in 2011 to 84 Tcf, and updated the Barnett in December 2015 to 53 Tcf.

This Mancos Shale study is the largest-ever upward revision on a percentage basis, and the second-largest reassessment of all time, USGS said. It also says the Utica holds up to 782 Tcf of recoverable resource.

Ludlam has a special reason to be happy about the new Mancos estimate. “Based on the news that the Piceance now surpasses household names like the Barnett, Haynesville and other world-class shale gas plays, independents active on the Western Slope are excited,” he said.

The West Slope association quoted in its statement Michael Rynearson, who is the Piceance operations manager for Caerus Oil and Gas LLC, a recent entrant into the basin. He said, “This is exactly why we and other Piceance producers remain bullish about the basin. We used to say years ago there were decades of future drilling locations in Western Colorado. Today, it might be more practical to measure our future basin-wide well locations by generations.”

The potential is staggering, especially if we look at the possibility of gas in the form of LNG being exported from the Mancos to Japan. The USGS announcement gives Colorado officials a huge booster shot in that regard, since they are trying to get FERC to revisit the application to export gas via Veresen Inc.’s proposed Jordan Cove LNG terminal, to be situated at Coos Bay, Oregon. Recall that in March FERC denied the initial request, saying the parties hadn’t shown sufficient market need.

Now, they have. Just a few days after FERC’s ruling, Veresen unveiled two new deals, each calling for 1.5 MMtpa of LNG deliveries for 20 years. One buyer is Itochu Corp.; the other is a joint venture between Tokyo Electric Power Co. and Chubu Electric Power Co. All told, these amount to the world’s largest LNG buyers by volume.

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, U.S. Senators Michael Bennet and Cory Gardner, Denver independent Bob Boswell (chairman and CEO of Laramie Energy II), and others had gone to Tokyo to meet with the Japanese earlier. Boswell sold Laramie I, focused on the Piceance, for $1 billion and is looking anew in the basin with his second Laramie.

The Piceance is a mix of federal and fee lands, with the majority of the most prospective lands in private hands, Ludlam said. The best part of the basin runs along the Colorado River adjacent to I-70. Because it’s in a valley, most of it is owned by ranchers, while the federal holdings tend to be found higher up on the mesas, or further north toward the town of Meeker and the Wyoming border.

“Yes, there is a lot of federal land there, and this could be a challenge. We’ll have to turn up our efforts and work harder with the BLM. It’s going to be a huge challenge,” Ludlam said, a challenge echoed by operators and the Western Energy Alliance.

Conclusion? The Piceance could be a rising star in U.S. gas production, but there are too many variables in its way, at least for now.