Southern England Holds Billions Of Barrels Of Shale Oil

Shale rock underneath some of the wealthiest counties in southern England may contain billions of barrels of oil, a government report said. The Weald basin, covering counties south of London including Surrey and Sussex, may have oil in place of as much as 8.6 billion barrels, according to a report by the British Geological Survey published today. It didn’t say how much could be extracted profitably. The U.K.’s current extractable oil reserves stand at 3.1 billion barrels, according to BP. --Nidaa Bakhsh, Bloomberg, 23 May 2014

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The European Union aims decisively to shift away from dependence on Russian gas imports, following previous failed attempts, according to a draft European Commission document on energy security. “Producing oil and gas from unconventional sources in Europe, and especially shale gas, could partially compensate for declining conventional production, providing issues of public acceptance and environmental impact are adequately addressed.” --Gerard Wynn, Responding to Climate Change, 21 May 2014 The European Union has enough gas trapped in shale to free the bloc from reliance on Russian energy supplies for about 28 years if only the constituent countries are prepared to extract it. “Effective exploitation of these assets could significantly increase Europe’s energy security,” said Zhenbo Hou, an analyst at the Overseas Development Institute in London, in a telephone interview. “It’s possible to see the Ukrainian conflict as a catalyst for fracking momentum in Europe, but I still see it as a long shot.” Ladka Bauerova and Radoslav Tomek, Bloomberg, 19 May 2014

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"This House believes that the immediate energy priority of the UK should be shale gas before renewable." --The Big Energy Debate, University of Chester, 24 May 2014 Russia wants a boom in unconventional oil output by the start of the next decade, and is prepared to look east for technology if its ambitions are hindered by Western sanctions over the Ukraine crisis, Russian oil executives said. "Russia might not be in the middle of delivering a new shale revolution but for sure is at the start of it," Andrei Kuzyaev, Lukoil vice president, told an annual economic forum in St Petersburg, shunned by many global CEOs because of East-West tensions over Ukraine. --Katya Golubkova, Reuters, 22 May 2014 Russia and China today cut a $400 billion, 30-year deal whereby Gazprom will deliver at least 1.3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas to China annually. Russia will build $55 billion worth of pipelines and processing plants to deliver the gas from Siberia. With Vladimir Putin threatening to cut off gas shipments to Ukraine it should be patently obvious to all European policy makers that they must wean themselves off of Russian gas. The answer for Europe is not more windmills and solar panels.What Europe needs as a balance against Putin is a fracking revolution. --Christopher Helman, Forbes, 22 May 2014

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