Environmental Engineering Reference
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divided. France, for example, currently has a moratorium on shale gas,
whilst in Poland the government is actively supporting shale gas develop-
ment although the industry faces various problems here that are affecting its
development.
The US Energy Information Administration estimated in 2011 that Poland
had possible reserves of 5.3 trillion cubic metres of shale gas, the biggest in
Europe. More recently, the Polish Geographical Institute has been more
conservative, with estimates of between 346 and 768 billion cubic metres of
shale gas. 44 However, there is a fear that Poland is moving to tax and regulate
the shale gas industry more and this uncertainty, coupled with the compli-
cated geology, which has produced some disappointing early results from test
wells, has lowered the enthusiasm of international exploration companies.
So the development of shale gas across the UK and the rest of Europe is a
mixed and complicated prospect that is dicult to predict, both in terms of
the volumes likely to be extracted and the impact this will have on overall
energy prices.
Worldwide predictions get even more dicult. The US Energy Information
Administration published figures in 2013 of the technically recoverable shale
gas resources outside of the United States which identified China as having
reserves of 31.55 trillion cubic metres and the top ten countries, which in-
clude the US, as having reserves of 206 trillion cubic metres (see Table 10). 48
However, how much of these reserves are economically recoverable is an-
other matter. Key positive above-the-ground advantages in the US and
Canada that may not apply in other locations include private ownership of
sub-surface rights that provide a strong incentive for development. These
include the availability of many independent operators and supporting
contractors with critical expertise and suitable drilling rigs and the pre-
existing gathering pipeline infrastructure, together with the availability of
water resources for use in the hydraulic fracturing.
Table 10 Top ten countries with technically recoverable shale gas resources. 49
Rank
Country
Shale gas reserves (trillion cubic metres)
1
China
31.55
2
Argentina
22.7
3
Algeria
20
USA a
4
18.82
(32.85)
5 Canada 16.22
6 Mexico 15.42
7 Australia 12.37
8 South Africa 11.04
9 Russia 8.06
10 Brazil 6.93
World Total 206.56 (220.6)
a Energy Information Agency estimates used for ranking order. Advanced Resources Inter-
national estimates in parentheses.
 
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