Foreign media: China struggling shale gas development

The "shale gas revolution" originating in the United States is changing the world's energy supply structure. The wave of change will spread across a wide range of industries and industries. However, the location where shale gas sleeps is not only the United States. Among them, China has more than US reserves. So, can China's days of becoming a shale gas power come?

Currently "only North America is producing shale gas"

US Department of Energy data. The survey included 41 countries. The amount of resources is technically recoverable reserves.

The US Department of Energy announced the latest assessment of global shale gas resources in June. Among the 41 countries surveyed, the largest resource is China's 1,115 trillion cubic feet, the second is Argentina, and the third is Algeria. The United States, which is the birthplace of the "shale gas revolution," ranks fourth, only It is 665 trillion cubic feet, which is 60% of China.

But a survey released by the Boston Consulting Group in July showed that as of the end of 2012, the number of mines excavated for shale gas mining in the United States and Canada reached 110,000. In contrast, there are fewer than 200 mines outside North America. 99.9% of shale gas and shale oil production is concentrated in North America. It can be said that the current status quo is that only North America is mining shale gas.

Other countries have not made a wall. China has formulated a five-year plan for shale gas, and proposed an ambitious development goal of 6.5 billion cubic meters by 2015 and 60 billion to 100 billion cubic meters by 2020.

China's oil and gas and China's petrochemical and other state-owned oil companies have begun trial mining in Sichuan and other places, more than 70 enterprises participated in the government-sponsored mining area tender. International oil capitals such as the British and Dutch Shell Oil Company and the United States Exxon Mobil also joined forces with China's major oil companies to participate in the bidding.

However, Hashimoto Yu, research director of the Japan Energy Economic Research Institute, believes that China's shale gas production is on track "it takes a long time." China's production target of 6.5 billion cubic meters by 2015 is only a few percent of China's natural gas consumption. Takehara Miki, director of the Japan Oil and Gas Metals and Mineral Resources Agency, asserted: "The realization of the target is very difficult. If all goes well, it will reach a maximum of 4 to 5 billion cubic meters."

Why is China's output difficult to grow? “China’s shale gas is not so attractive. The amount of resources is only theoretical. The problem is that the geological situation is not optimistic.” An official of the Japanese government’s agency heard the Chinese resource stakeholders at the international conference. .

Takenaka Miki pointed out that Sichuan Province, which is one of the major producers of shale gas in China, has a complex geological structure and is even called a geological museum. In addition, the natural gas layer is located much deeper than the United States.

To extract shale gas, it is necessary to inject high-pressure water into the bedrock layer to break it, and then extract the natural gas oozing out from the crack. However, Takeuchi Takeo pointed out that "American technology is difficult to use in China. China lacks water incorporation. It takes time to develop these technologies, such as the ratio of materials and pressures, which are suitable for China's geological conditions.

Unlike the United States, which has large flatlands, Sichuan is full of steep mountains. Hashimoto said that "the United States, which has a long history of oil and gas production, is dotted with pipelines, but in China, the infrastructure for transporting natural gas is not yet complete."

In addition, ensuring that a large amount of water is injected into the bedrock layer is also one of the problems. Taking these factors into consideration, the production cost of shale gas in China will be significantly higher than that of traditional natural gas. In addition, factors that hinder corporate investment will include government restrictions on natural gas prices. Since the wholesale price of domestically produced natural gas is kept at a low level, the costly shale gas development may be forced to be postponed.

Going on track will wait until 2020