Business Day: UK to ease shale extraction rules

Britain plans to ease regulations on mining shale oil and gas, including drilling without landowners’ permission, a move that coincides with a government report suggesting billions of barrels of shale oil may lie underneath southern England.

As the country’s North Sea reserves dwindle, hopes are that shale oil and gas will take their place and reduce dependence on imported fuel. The report from the British Geological Survey cites reserves of as many as 8.57-billion barrels of oil, with a central estimate of 4.4-billion.

Britain has extracted about 45-billion barrels of North Sea oil since the 1970s but output has been falling for a decade. In the US, the massive expansion of shale gas extraction has driven down energy prices and cut dependence on imports.
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