21st Mar 2014 09:16
LONDON (Alliance News) - UK Onshore Gas Ltd is planning a listing on the London Stock Exchange's AIM market in the next three months to help finance its ongoing exploration programme in Wales, according to The Times Friday.
The shale gas explorer, which plans to start drill testing in June, believe that Wales has so much shale gas reserves that it eventually could start exporting globally.
UK Onshore Gas Chairman Gerwyn Williams told The Times that the South Wales Milford Haven terminal, which imports liquefield natural gas from shippers, could be reconfigured to export the highly sought-after resource.
?If we are successful, there is no reason why we could not export shale gas from the Milford Haven LNG terminal,? Williams said. ?If it can happen in the US, it can happen here. It?s a matter of engineering.?
UK Onshore Gas is better known for its subsidiaries Coastal Oil and Gas and UK Methane, but it also has 260,000 acres of exploration acreage in Wales, with plans to drill six wells over the next two years to assess the region's shale gas reserves.
The Times said that, according to a consultancy in Texas, the area between Cardiff and Swansea contains up to 50 trillion cubic feet of gas, which would meet Britain's gas needs for six years.
However, Williams argues that the official estimate is too low and should be more like the Bowland shale region in the North of England, which officially holds up to 1,300 trillion cubic feet of gas.
If the exploration drilling shows enough reserves, UK Onshore Gas will apply for permission to frack the wells to test how much can be recovered.
?If the well results are positive, I?m sure we would get permission to frack them,? Williams said. ?There is a lot of unemployment in South Wales. Developing a shale gas industry in South Wales would create a lot of jobs.?
The shale industry in the UK is undergoing a major push, with companies like Total SA, Cuadrilla Resources Ltd, IGas Energy PLC and Egdon Resources developing fracking operations around the country.
Hydraulic fracturing, otherwise known as fracking, involves extracting gas trapped in shale by pumping in pressurised water and chemicals.
In the US, fuel prices have falling sharply as fracking has become commonplace across such states as North Dakota and Mississippi.
However, so far in Europe fracking has had mixed results - often being either controversial or unreliable. In the UK, there have been major protests against the method, which critics fear will pollute water tables in rural areas and may cause small earthquakes.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/business/industries/naturalresources/article4039802.ece
By Tom McIvor; [email protected]; @TomMcIvor1
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