http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/10/business/energy-environment/10gas.html?_r=1&th&emc=th
New Way to Tap Gas May Expand Global Supplies
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS
Published: October 9, 2009
OKLAHOMA CITY - A new technique that tapped previously inaccessible
supplies of natural gas in the United States is spreading to the rest
of the world, raising hopes of a huge expansion in global reserves of
the cleanest fossil fuel.
Italian and Norwegian oil engineers and geologists have arrived in
Texas, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania to learn how to extract gas from
layers of a black rock called shale. Companies are leasing huge
tracts of land across Europe for exploration. And oil executives are
gathering rocks and scrutinizing Asian and North African geological
maps in search of other fields.
The global drilling rush is still in its early stages. But energy
analysts are already predicting that shale could reduce Europe's
dependence on Russian natural gas. They said they believed that gas
reserves in many countries could increase over the next two decades,
comparable with the 40 percent increase in the United States in
recent years.
"It's a breakout play that is going to identify gigantic resources
around the world," said Amy Myers Jaffe, an energy expert at Rice
University. "That will change the geopolitics of natural gas."
More extensive use of natural gas could aid in reducing global
warming, because gas produces fewer emissions of greenhouse gases
than either oil or coal. China and India, which have growing
economies that rely heavily on coal for electricity, appear to have
large potential for production of shale gas. Larger gas reserves
would encourage developing countries to convert more of their
transportation fleets to use natural gas rather than gasoline.
Shale is a sedimentary rock rich in organic material that is found in
many parts of the world. It was of little use as a source of gas
until about a decade ago, when American companies developed new
techniques to fracture the rock and drill horizontally.
Because so little drilling has been done in shale fields outside of
the United States and Canada, gas analysts have made a wide array of
estimates for how much shale gas could be tapped globally. Even the
most conservative estimates are enormous, projecting at least a 20
percent increase in the world's known reserves of natural gas.
One recent study by IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates, a
consulting group, calculated that the recoverable shale gas outside
of North America could turn out to be equivalent to 211 years' worth
of natural gas consumption in the United States at the present level
of demand, and maybe as much as 690 years. The low figure would
represent a 50 percent increase in the world's known gas reserves,
and the high figure, a 160 percent increase.
The projections suggest that the new method of producing gas "is the
biggest energy innovation of the decade," said Daniel Yergin,
chairman of the Cambridge consulting group. "And the amazing thing is
there was no grand opening ceremony for it. It just snuck up."
Over the last five years, production of gas from shale has spread
across wide swaths of Texas, Louisiana and Pennsylvania. All the new
production has produced a glut of gas in the United States, helping
to drive down gas prices and utility costs.
Now American companies are looking abroad for lucrative shale fields
in countries hungry for more energy. They are focusing particularly
on Europe, where gas prices are sometimes twice what they are in the
United States, and large shale beds are located close to some cities.
Exxon Mobil has drilled a few exploratory wells in Germany in recent
months. Devon Energy is teaming up with Total, the French oil
company, seeking approval to drill in France. ConocoPhillips
announced recently that it had signed an agreement with a subsidiary
of a small British firm to explore a million acres in the Baltic
Basin of Poland.
Early estimates of recoverable European shale gas resources range up
to 400 trillion cubic feet, less than half the industry's estimates
of what is recoverable in the United States. But European energy
executives say they are excited about the prospects because the
Continent's conventional gas reserves are too small to meet demand.
"It is obvious to everybody that it has huge potential," said Oivind
Reinertsen, president of StatoilHydro USA and Mexico, a Norwegian
company with growing shale interests. "You see a lot of land-grabbing
by different companies in Europe, potentially spreading to the Far
East, China and India."
Donald I. Hertzmark, a consultant who advises multinational oil
companies on gas projects, said that in a decade or so, the new shale
gas resources would improve Europe's ability to withstand any future
reduction in Russian pipeline shipments. In 2006 and again last
winter, Russia cut off natural gas deliveries shipped through Ukraine
because of disputes between the two countries, causing shortages
around Europe.
European companies are buying large interests in shale fields in the
United States, partly to supply the American market, but also to
learn the specialized mapping and drilling techniques required for
shale gas.
Several of the European companies have entered into partnerships with
smaller American companies. ENI of Italy paid $280 million in May for
a stake in a 13,000-acre gas field north of Fort Worth operated by
Quicksilver Resources. ENI has a crew of four engineers, a geologist
and a geophysicist in Texas to learn from Quicksilver personnel.
One of the biggest marriages is between Chesapeake Energy of Oklahoma
City and its strategic partner StatoilHydro.
Seeking cash, Chesapeake agreed to sell Statoil a large stake in its
Marcellus shale holdings, centered in Pennsylvania, for $3.9 billion
last November. The two companies are looking at shale fields in
China, India, Australia and other countries. Seven Statoil employees
are working in Oklahoma and Pennsylvania learning to map and fracture
shale, and calculate shale gas pressures, and more are coming.
"We know the shale is out there," said Lars Erik Oino, a Statoil
geologist working at Chesapeake headquarters here, as he rubbed
hydrochloric acid on a shale sample to test its mineral makeup. "This
could have a huge impact on the European energy situation."
......
--
Elan Shapiro
Sustainable Living Associates
Frog's Way B&B
211 Rachel Carson Way
Ithaca, NY 14850
607-275-0249 607-592-8402 Cell
"Be the change we want to see in the world"
Mohandas Gandhi
_______________________________________________
For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, please
visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/
RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for:
[email protected]
http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins
Questions about the list? ask [email protected]
free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org
