Cuadrilla finds huge shale reserves

Cuadrilla has announced that it has discovered shale gas reserves, estimated to be as large as 200 trillion ft³ in the Bowland Basin in Lancashire, UK. If the estimates prove correct, it will be the largest gas field ever discovered in the UK.

The company believes that the find will prove a major spur for the local economy and could create up to 5600 jobs in the UK at peak production, 1700 of them based around Lancashire.

The company plans to drill up to 400 wells in the field over the next nine years to extract the gas, and up to 800 over the next 16 years if drilling proves successful.

There are serious environmental concerns to do with the shale drilling. The ‘fracking’, or hydraulic fracturing process, which is used to extract the gas, has been causing controversy across the world due to concerns that it might pollute ground water.

Many people are also concerned that the drilling will spoil the visual landscape, Cuadrilla have decided to group the wells in groups of ten in areas the size of a football pitch to reduce the visual impact of the drilling activities.

More importantly though, Cuadrilla is currently banned from conducting any further drilling after there were two minor earthquakes in nearby Blackpool. The ban came into force in June and Cuadrilla will find out in the next 30 days if it’s exploration activities contributed to the earthquakes and if it will be permitted to continue drilling.

Read the article online at: https://www.oilfieldtechnology.com/exploration/22092011/cuadrilla_finds_huge_shale_reserves/