Rees-Jones, a former bankruptcy attorney, made his first fortune moving early to snap up acreage in the Barnett Shale gas play in Texas.

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That's a result of the explosion of natural gas drilling in the Barnett Shale near Forth Worth.

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The entire city of Fort Worth sits over a gas dense layer of black rock called the Barnett Shale that only recently became possible to access.

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Chesapeake Energy owns leading positions in the Barnett, Fayetteville, Haynesville, Marcellus and Bossier natural gas shale plays and in the Eagle Ford, Granite Wash, Niobrara and various other conventional and unconventional liquids-rich plays across the U.S. The firm has interests in over 44, 100 producing natural gas and oil wells that produce over 2.4 billion cubic feet equivalent per day, 93% of which is natural gas.

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Others are moving to the Dallas-Fort Worth area, where the Barnett Shale formation, which produces in 24 counties, accounted for 31% of well-gas production in Texas last year, according to the railroad commission.

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In 2009, the Barnett shale play was the most prolific play, accounting for almost 62 percent of the total shale gas production, says KPMG Consulting.

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Rhodri Thomas, an analyst at Wood Mackenzie, an energy consultancy, says the geology of the Polish shale is similar to that of the Barnett Shale, a giant field in Texas that now supplies about 7% of America's gas.

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