LONDON: UK shale gas explorer IGas now reckons its licence area in northwest England could hold enough gas to meet the country’s entire consumption for over five years, dwarfing a previous forecast and national proven reserves, it said yesterday.
The next few years will prove critical for Britain’s infant shale gas industry, which sees itself as vital to reversing a rising dependency on foreign gas but which must tread carefully to reassure a sceptical public and vocal environmental lobby.
The company said that technical studies now point to an estimated range of 15.1 to 172.3 trillion cubic feet of gas in place at its licence areas which sit between Liverpool and Manchester in northwest England, with a most likely estimate of 102tcf. It had previously forecast over 9tcf.
Chief Executive Andrew Austin said that only some of the gas would be recoverable from the area but nonetheless the potential volumes could change Britain’s energy balance.
“We (Britain) import around 1.5tcf, we consume around 3tcf a year, assuming you could recover technically something like 10 to 15 percent of the shale gas in place, then it could move import dependency out for about 10 to 15 years,” he told the BBC.
Britain expects to issue an upward revised estimate of its shale gas resources this summer. A preliminary estimate by the British Geological Survey put recoverable reserves at around 5.3 trillion cubic feet, enough to meet national consumption for less than two years.
Shares in IGas rose to a four-month high of 107.5 pence on Monday morning, and were trading 8.6 percent higher at 101 pence by 0800 GMT.
Drilling is planned for later this year, which would refine the estimates and the potential of the basin, the company said.
Analysts at Jefferies said that while the estimate range was large, the most likely forecast of about 100 tcf showed the significance of the licence, both relative to IGas’s resource base and the UK’s existing gas reserves.
Reuters
