Shell has found shale gas in China, according to a Reuters report from the World Petroleum Congress in Doha.
Professor Yuzhang Liu, Vice president of Petrochina’s Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration and Development, told Reuters “Shell has two vertical wells and they got very good primary production.”
Petrochina is Shell’s joint venture partner in exploring for shale gas in Changbei, and Fushun-Yongchuan block in Sichuan.
China does not currently produce shale gas, but the supermajors have been keen to move in as data show the country has abundant reserves of the gas, albeit in more challenging geology than much of the US, where the ‘shale gale’ has transformed the domestic energy mix.
China is now the largest energy consumer in the world, and is increasingly focusing on its domestic resources to meet demand. The U.S. Energy Information Administration says China has 1,275 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable gas resources.
