UK Shale Gas to Create 64,000 Jobs, Says Ernest & Young

The lack of expertise could be an obstacle for desirable shale gas developments in the United Kingdom, which could ‘contribute a significant proportion of the UK’s gas requirements’ and create 64,500 jobs, reads a freshly released industry-commissioned report. 

According to the study carried by Ernst & Young LLP, ‘shale gas production could represent over a third of total UK annual consumption in the 2020s.’ 

The main point of the report is that UK shale would provide the county with a long-term option to buy energy locally rather than through imports. But to do so, significant investments are required. 

‘The report supports the numbers already published by the Institute of Directors in May 2013. It identifies that over 2016–32 c.£33bn of spend could be required to bring up to 4,000 wells into production. At peak this equates to around £3.3bn of spend,’ reads the executive summary released on Thursday.

Investments are needed to buy specialised equipment and skills (£17bn), for services related to waste and transportation (£4.1bn) and steel requirements (£2.3bn).

In this context, Ernest & Young registered some British progress in 2014, recalling Cuadrilla Resources’ activities in the Bowland-Hodder shale basin within Lancashire. 

Also on Thursday, the Department of Energy and Climate Change released a study on energy trends and prices for the 3-month period December 2013 to February 2014, stating that ‘indigenous energy production fell by 1.4% with coal production down 23%.’ At the same time, the statistics pointed out that gas production increased by 1.3% in the period.