"The McArthur Basin in the NT has the potential to do for Australia what the shale gas revolution has done for America," he said in an interview with the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association in the lead-up to its next annual conference in Adelaide, where Santos is based.
He said developing the basin would reinvigorate industry, investment and jobs on a huge scale and develop new regions of northern Australia to provide abundant and affordable energy.
Comparing Territory development to US shale is a big call given ongoing shale development benefitted from greatly from established industry, pipelines and supply chains in US states like Pennsylvania.
However Santos says the McArthur has key technical attributes comparable to successful US shale basins, with large potential for unconventional oil and gas resources".
Additional to that the shale revolution did increase supply to a point where it wasn't simply beneficial to power prices but to industrial customers who needed gas for manufacturing, which was in a sorry state before the shale revolution began.
His comments come just as the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission said gas prices are still too high on the east coast, despite government intervention prompting greater supply, and that the market is still not functioning properly.
Santos has been at the forefront of increasing supply since the Australian Energy Market Operator predicted a 57-104 petajoule shortfall for next year.
That worry has now been allayed since the large Adelaide oiler, along with Shell and Origin Energy promised the Prime Minister supply through 2018.
But gas shortages will continue through the midterm and more supply will be needed to drive costs down, and Gallagher is obviously looking to the hot and isolated Territory as a longer term solution.
His interview has also come the same day that the ban on fraccing could be lifted lifting, with a draft report released yesterday from the Northern Territory's frac inquiry led by Justice Rachel Pepper finding that the many frac risks could be mitigated, reduced or even eliminated.
Three years of environmental studies would be needed before development could start the report said, but given McArthur's development would be long term - a decade at least - that's hardly a pressing issue.
"The geological basins in the NT that are currently considered to contain not only prospective rocks with the necessary prerequisites for shale gas occurrence, but have also had some confirmation through exploration drilling, are the Amadeus Basin and the Beetaloo Sub-basin in the McArthur Basin," the report said.
Geoscience Australia estimates that Territory has 257, 276 petajoules of gas, the lion's share in the Beetaloo sub-Basin and recently also released the first-ever seismic data from the South Nicholson Basin that stretches across the Territory and Queensland.
Santos has a large footprint in the heart of McArthur with a 50% interest in permits EP161, EP162 and EP189 and has applied for a 100% interest in EP(A) 288 southeast of Katherine, with all located close to critical infrastructure like a major highway, gas pipelines and a railway.
ACIL Allen's recent report on the economic benefits to the Territory were the frac ban lifted found $17.5 billion in additional benefit to the Australian economy, under a best case scenario.
