China has around 31 trillion cubic meters of natural gas trapped in shale, some 50% greater than the United States according to the US Department of Energy estimate. The French oil giant, Total, has just signed a deal with China’s Sinopec to produce shale gas in China. Until now China’s rough mountainous terrain and lack of shale gas fracking know-how has kept it out of the shale gas, with coal far the major source of electric power. The governing State Council has recently approved shale gas as an “independent mineral resource” and the Ministry of Land and Resources will conduct an appraisal of shale gas resources this year to expedite discovery and development of China shale deposits. In China, shale gas looks about to take off as a major new focus for the country’s enormous energy requirements. Of course one test in one well is hardly conclusive, though the Tusk government doesn’t seem to care as they push Brussels to launch a major Polish shale gas exploitation program. The US oilfield services giant Schlumberger did the fracking. In tests at one well in northern Poland done last August, the Polish Geological Institute claimed that Hydraulic fracturing didn’t affect the quality or quantity of surface and ground water and didn’t cause tremors that would pose a threat to buildings or other infrastructure.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk calls shale gas Poland’s "great chance," because it could cut its dependence on Russian gas, create tens of thousands of jobs and fill state coffers. The Polish government is in a state of near euphoria over the prospects of exploiting its shale gas resources. Not only ExxonMobil but also BASF’s Wintershall, Gaz de France, BNK Petroleum from the US and a daughter of Britain’s Royal Dutch Shell are salivating over German shale gas prospects. Citizen protest groups and Parliamentary skepticism about health and safety of shale gas so far is braking a German shale gas bonanza. The US Energy Department estimates that Germany could have some 8 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable shale gas, three years’ total consumption. We cannot achieve the energy strategy shift without gas." ExxonMobil estimates shale gas is potentially available in six of Germany’s 16 states. The company’s head for Central Europe, Gernot Kalkoffen in a recent interview stated, "Germany is most definitely an interesting market. ExxonMobil, the world’s largest oil company is planning major projects in the densely-populated North-Rhein Westphalia region.
Įven in Germany some cash-strapped states are seriously looking at Shale gas. The rest of Europe they estimate simply lacks the geology where substantial shale rock is present. The study puts Poland and France at the top of the shale gas list in the EU. Significantly, the report estimates that the largest untapped shale gas reserves worldwide lie in China. The US Government’s Department of Energy together with a Washington energy consultancy has just released a mammoth global report estimating resources of shale gas. The most ambitious plans are coming from China and from Poland in the EU. From Germany to Poland and France, from China and above all in the USA where the technique of hydraulic fracturing of shale rocks is most developed, governments and major oil companies are producing huge volumes of gas.Ī number of energy importing countries around the world are planning a major investment in extracting natural gas from their shale rock formations. There is a global rush to embrace a new source of extracting hydrocarbons from the Earth. 8, 2011, for the first time, that fracking may be to blame for causing groundwater pollution. Environmental Protection Agency announced on Dec.
Workers step through the maze of hoses used at a remote fracking site being run by Halliburton.
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