EMEA News
Chancellor Says UK Will Make Shale Gas Happen
UK Chancellor George Osborne has presented plans to Parliament to encourage shale gas production in the country, British national daily The Guardian reports.
"Shale gas is part of the future, and we will make it happen," he said in a budget presentation last week.
The plans include a tax break for companies that want to develop the fuel.
The UK government had issued a temporary moratorium on hydraulic fracturing for natural gas in 2011 to investigate links between a shale-gas well and seismic events, but it lifted the ban in December 2012.
The lifting of the ban followed the European Parliament's rejection of a Europe-wide moratorium on development of shale gas.
While environmental organisations and some residents living near drilling sites have protested shale development, proponents say preventing the practice could keep the country from large amounts of the fuel, according to industry publication Rigzone.
Cuadrilla Resources (Cuadrilla) is currently the only company using hydraulic fracturing to develop shale gas in the country, and it says 200 trillion cubic feet of gas is held in the Bowland basin, which it is developing.
"From what I understand there are four or five basins around the UK that could be similar to the Bowland basin," said Cuadrilla Development Director Mark Miller.
