EIA increases estimates on UK shale gas reserves

The UK has enough shale gas to meet its own domestic gas consumption demands for nearly a decade, according to a report by the US Energy Information Agency (EIA).

The country currently has reserves of 26trillion cubic feet and the EIA estimates that potential British shale oil reserves could be at 700million barrels.

Overall, the EIA predicts that supplies of shale oil worldwide could increase global oil reserves by 11%.

The study looked at 37 known formations across 41 countries and is the first to estimate liquid shale reserves on a global scale.

The EIA believes that the world holds 345bn bbl of technically-recoverable shale oil and more than 7,300bn ft3 of shale gas.

This could increase global oil reserves by 11%, and gas reserves by 47%.

It is thought that around two-thirds of the shale oil reserves are concentrated in Russia, the US, China, Argentina and Libya.

The study notes, however, that it would not be commercially feasible to tap all of these reserves.

“A potential shale well that costs twice as much and produces half the output of a typical US well would be unlikely to back out current supply sources of oil or natural gas,” it said.

“In many cases, even significantly smaller differences in costs, well productivity, or both can make the difference between a resource that is a market game changer and one that is economically irrelevant at current market prices.”

The study points out that these resource estimates are highly uncertain and will remain so until they are extensively tested with production wells.

It added that shale oil and gas “have revolutionised US oil and natural gas production”, providing 29 % of total US crude oil production and 40% of total U.S. natural gas production in 2012.