Shale gas is coming . . . message from our seminar last night
January 21st, 2011We had an incredible event last night “Shale Gas in Europe”. Huge thanks to;
- our three expert speakers, Leigh Bolton of Holmwood Consulting, Nick Grealy of NoHotAir and Dr John Buggenhagen of San Leon Energy plc
- Allen & Overy for their generous sponsorship and last but not least
- a most engaging and intelligent audience
Telegraph TV turned up as well. I’ll post a link up when they go live.
The UK’s import of LNG is accelerating faster than anticipated . . .
December 30th, 2010According to a report covered by Rigzone, the UK has just set a new monthly record for the import of LNG of 73 Bcf for November 2010. Can’t wait to see December which I suspect will be a new record again. It was 378 Bcf for the whole of 2009 and is expected to be close to 700 Bcf for 2010, so roughly double.
What”s interesting as well is the source of the LNG – predominantly Quatar, followed by Algeria and Nigeria.
I can’t see these trends not driving EU governments to push harder on shale gas exploration in the years to come.
The shale gas story – is Europe next?
December 22nd, 2010A concise and fascinating piece – with a useful graphic on unconventional gas risk factors – just published in Petroleum Economist (behind a paywall but free for 48 hours, post-registration) by three Schlumberger business consultants – Herve Wilczynski, Muqsit Ashraf and Mohammed Saadat, the opening paragraph of which I’ve appended below;
Shale gas: a risk worth taking
“UNCONVENTIONAL gas accounts for half of North American production, with investment exceeding $25bn a year. Although this has changed the continent’s energy outlook, there may be a bigger prize: nearly 75% of the world’s shale-gas resources lie outside the region.”
Not least I might add, in Europe – to find out more about Europe’s shale gas prospects, attend our event in London on the 20th January, Shale Gas in Europe.
My gut feeling is that Shale gas in Europe is going to move a lot faster than anticipated. And not just because the extreme winter is driving up gas prices to 2 year record highs prompting gas balancing alerts.
Do not underestimate the technical progress that could be made in just a few years in lowering the cost and increasing the quantity of shale gas extraction.
