Irish Times: Well-drilled promising a lot about the fractious issue of sourcing gas

INTERVIEW: The man behind a fracking proposal in the northwest says there are immense opportunities for Ireland if the project proceeds

BUNDORAN MIGHT be best known for its surfing these days, but the Donegal resort town has given its name to a rock formation that is creating waves of its own – the Bundoran shale. 

If the word “shale” has not already given the game away, it’s the formation that Australian company Tamboran says holds up to 4.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas – equivalent to 12 years of Irish daily consumption and enough to support 3,000 jobs for four or five decades. The rock pokes through the surface at Bundoran from where it stretches back inland.

Tamboran chief executive Richard Moorman compares it to a bowl with Bundoran on the rim. But it’s the centre of the bowl, deep under north Leitrim and south Fermanagh, that interests him and his company.

Moorman says that the rock shares the same “DNA” as shales that produce natural gas in North America. All Tamboran had to do was establish whether or not the Bundoran shale could be cracked to release the gas. Tests, carried out by an independent group, Core Laboratories, produced results that Moorman describes as compelling. The rock was crackable.  MORE