Telegraph: Before you back Britain’s fracking boom, drill down into the details

The potential returns for an investor in the UK fracking industry are mouth- watering. Britain’s reserves of gas and oil trapped within layers of shale rock could be worth billions of pounds, generating handsome returns for early investors. The US has demonstrated that in favourable geological conditions, commercial shale gas extraction is possible, and UK investors have a range of options to choose from to benefit from this new era of fracking.

However, this is far from a one-way bet since there is still a long and high-risk road to any future returns, and the collapse of shale gas prospects in Poland shows how difficult it can be.

There is no doubting the gas and oil reserves that are in the UK. The British Geological Survey estimates that there are 1,300 trillion cubic feet of natural gas trapped in shale rock beneath northern England in the Bowland shale region. If just a fraction of those gas resources are realised at today’s prices, they would be worth more than £1 trillion.
MORE