IGas Claims Significant Shale Potential
IGas Energy, the largest independent coal-bed methane producer in the UK, has reported that 1.95 trillion cubic feet of shale gas may lie trapped in rocks beneath the Wirral Peninsula in Britain, as well as other areas it has licensed.
Many of the deposits lie beneath or close to existing coal beds, where IGas is trying to produce another unconventional form of coal seam gas.
A spokesman for IGas said that shale gas would be sufficient to supply all 26 million British homes with their gas needs for a period of nearly three years, although he cautioned that in practice it would take far longer than this to extract.
The 1.95 trillion cu ft estimate was produced for IGas by Equipoise Solutions Ltd, an independent oil and gas appraisal group, which undertook an undertaken an of the shale gas potential of the Holywell shale within certain interests held by IGas, across the North West of England and North Wales.
Andrew Austin, the IGas chief executive, said that the shale gas deposits, if developed, could make a “very useful contribution to the UK energy mix”.
Shale, called a “boring rock”, according to Prof. Mike Stephenson, Head of Science, Energy at the British Geological Survey, the UK’s national institute for geological data, may be an easy way to meet global energy demand and climate change mandates.
One of IGas’s exploration blocks lies beneath Liverpool John Lennon airport, another below the town of Stafford and a third beneath Widnes and Warrington in Cheshire.
In an interview with The Times, Mr. Austin brushed aside concerns that shale gas production would attract local opposition. He said: “This is a very heavily industrialized area, so wherever possible we will use brownfield sites.” He added that the project was still in the appraisal stage and that it was several years from commercial operation.
“Everyone is talking about shale gas deposits in Poland and other parts of Europe, but they are overlooking the fact that there is a significant amount of shale gas here, as well. It makes a heck of a lot of sense to develop it.”
Stephenson has also spoken about “nimby” sentiments: i.e. “not in my backyard.”
“People are worried about what goes on under their feet, he explained, offering the example of gas storage facilities being built in the UK. “We must convince public how safe it is, negligible, safer than the surface, yet the public doesn’t like it; we must engage them in a much more open way.”
Cuadrilla Resources is drilling the UK’s first shale gas well shale gas a few miles from Blackpool in Lancashire, targeting gas trapped 10,000 feet below the surface in the Bowland shale, which runs from Pendle Hill near Preston to the Irish Sea.
Large parts of Britain are still sitting on coal beds,. The coal seam both generates and traps the gas, which can be extracted by drilling into the seam and collected for use as fuel from which coal seam gas can be extracted using new technology developed in the US and Australia.
IGas states that CBM is exactly the same as other forms of natural gas, and is used to provide both industrial and domestic power and has the potential to be an important new source of energy for the UK.