Bids for Shale Gas Exploration Licences in UK Expected to Surge

Bids for shale gas exploration licences are expected to surge in the UK according to The Sunday Telegraph.

In a document viewed by the newspaper, the Department for Energy and Climate Change has identified large areas of eastern and southern England as having the “best shale gas potential”.

The main area identified runs from just south of Middlesbrough in a crescent through East Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Buckinghamshire and the Cotswolds to Somerset and Wiltshire.

It then turns along the South Coast and Downs, including most of Dorset, Hampshire, Sussex, Surrey and Kent. Shale gas sites are under investigation in the Sussex commuter belt, near Haywards Heath, the Mendip Hills, south of Bath, in Kent, Lincolnshire, south Wales, Staffordshire and Cheshire, as well as more sites near the existing find in Lancashire.

One firm, Celtique Energie, estimates that there may be as much as 14 trillion cubic feet of recoverable shale gas in countryside south of Horsham, West Sussex, for which it already has a licence.

Read the full article from The Sunday Telegraph HERE