Britain Opens Door to More Shale Gas Drilling
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Version 0 of 1. LONDON — The British government signaled on Tuesday that it was intensifying its efforts to encourage the development of shale gas production, with plans to award a new set of shale drilling licenses next year despite persistent opposition from environmental groups. “Today marks the next step in unlocking the potential of shale gas in our energy mix,” Energy Minister Michael Fallon said in a statement on Tuesday. Britain’s Department of Energy and Climate Change, which regulates the oil and gas industry, said it was “currently making preparations” to offer the licenses. Environmental groups have warned that shale gas development, done through hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, would swamp British villages with truck traffic, and pollute and waste enormous amounts of water. They also say that Britain and the world should be investing in renewable energy sources like wind and solar rather than opening up a new trove of fossil fuels. “Real energy security in the U.K. can only be achieved through clean renewable sources and energy efficiency,” Greenpeace said on Tuesday. “Fracking is a dangerous distraction.” The government’s decision means that 2014 could be a crucial year for determining whether shale gas production takes off in Britain. Companies may be able to drill enough wells to figure out whether the country has large and exploitable reserves. Next year may also determine whether the local authorities, which tend to be more skeptical than the national government of the potential value of shale gas, will allow a substantial amount of exploration work. Shale gas operators say they are encouraged despite very little drilling activity currently. The British Geological Survey estimated this year that a large area in the middle of Britain had 1,300 trillion cubic feet, or 36.8 trillion cubic meters, of shale gas in place. If 10 percent of that amount could be produced, it would be enough for about 45 years of current consumption. “Only a year since restrictions on hydraulic fracturing were lifted we have now got a complete suite of measures under which we can operate,” said Andrew Austin, the chief executive of Igas Energy, a shale gas company that is drilling at the Barton Moss site near Manchester, England. What is particularly worrying to environmental groups is a government map indicating that a very large part of Britain — Greenpeace says two-thirds of the land area of England — is under consideration for shale gas licenses. “There’s no public mandate for this industrialization of the English countryside and for digging up new forms of fossil fuels,” Anna Jones, a Greenpeace campaigner, said in a statement on Tuesday. The British government stands out in Western Europe for pursuing potential gains from shale gas, which has transformed the energy market in the United States. Even though countries like France and Germany are big importers of natural gas and other fuels, their governments are nervous about taking the political heat that an approval of fracking would almost certainly generate. The picture is different in Eastern Europe, with the Polish government courting shale developers in hopes of reducing its dependence on coal and gas imports from Russia. Ukraine and Romania have also made long-term shale gas deals with oil companies including Chevron. The British government is trying to convince the public that shale gas will be an economic boon rather than an environmental headache. Mr. Fallon said that local communities would receive 100,000 pounds, or about $162,000, for each well that was hydraulically fractured and that almost £1 billion might eventually be paid out to communities across Britain as they receive 1 percent of the revenue from each producing well during its 20-year lifetime. The government on Tuesday also published a series of booklets detailing the rules for obtaining drilling and fracking permits, and it released an environmental assessment prepared by an energy consulting firm, AMEC, that presented an optimistic picture of the effects of fracking. The report, the “Strategic Environmental Assessment for Further Onshore Oil and Gas Licensing,” said that if a large number of licenses were awarded, oil and gas companies might produce in total more than twice the amount of gas consumed in Britain per year. It also estimated that shale gas exploration and production, if successful, could create 16,000 to 32,000 jobs. But the AMEC report also noted some potential negatives, including large-scale water use and the possibility that fracking sites might require up to 51 truck visits per day for 145 weeks. But it said that tough planning restrictions and other regulation could ensure that such issues would not “be unacceptable in the local context.” Mr. Fallon, the energy minister, said the government would consider comments on the report before going ahead with the licensing round. |