Shale drilling considered for bulk of UK
18 Dec 2013
The government is considering over half of the land across the UK as potential areas for shale gas development, a report by Amec has revealed.
Commissioned by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), Amec’s Strategic Environmental Assessment for Further Onshore Oil & Gas Licensing reveals that all of England apart from Cornwall and much of southern Scotland is under consideration for exploration licenses.
It is an exciting prospect, which could bring growth, jobs and energy security
Energy minister Michael Fallon
Within this huge area Amec expects a maximum of 20,000km2 to be occupied for unconventional oil and gas exploration.
However, the maximum amount of land on which Amec expects actual shale oil and gas production to take place is just 360 hectares, working from an assumption of a maximum of 120 well pads (at up to 24 wells per pad) being developed at a maximum area of 3 hectares per pad. These pads could produce, says the report, total some 0.12 to 0.24 trillion m3 of gas, more than twice the approximate 0.1 trillion m3 of gas consumed in the UK each year.
Amec’s high activity scenario for shale drilling in the report predicts up to 32,000 new jobs being created in the UK oil and gas sector, with a low activity scenario of between six and 12 pads envisaging just 2,400 jobs.
The report also highlights the potential huge impact of shale development on water consumption.
At maximum production of 2,880 wells, each consuming up to 25,000m3, shale oil and gas production in the UK could consume 72 million m3 of water, with the high activity scenario predicting this would equate to 9 million m3 annually. This would increase the current water consumption of the energy, water and waste sectors combined by 18.5%, but still only account for less than 1% of total UK water consumption.
However, this figure is much higher when exploratory fracking and testing operations are included, and is illustrated by the total range of activities’ collective impact on wastewater treatment.
Flowback associated with hydraulic fracturing for shale gas could range from 3,000m3 to 18,750m3 per well. Amec’s study assumes the flowback will need to be treated offsite, and under the high activity scenario up to 108 million m3 of wastewater would require treatment as a result of exploration, testing and production - approximately 3% of the UK’s total annual wastewater.
Energy minister Michael Fallon said: “There could be large amounts of shale gas available in the UK, but we won’t know for sure the scale of this prize until further exploration takes place. Today marks the next step in unlocking the potential of shale gas in our energy mix.
“It is an exciting prospect, which could bring growth, jobs and energy security.”
