Platts: US EIA lowers French shale gas estimates by 24% to 137 Tcf as government mulls energy future
The US Energy Information Administration has reduced its estimates of technically recoverable shale gas resources in France by some 24% to 137 Tcf, providing the government with further data to digest during this summer's national debate on energy policy.
The new estimates, published late Monday, come after scientists examined "better data on the southeast-basin in France," the EIA said, which is the area in which exploration activity was taking place before the government imposed a ban on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in 2011.
The EIA sees most of France's recoverable shale gas reserves in the Paris basin, a large 65,000 square mile area in the northeast of the country. French reserves make up over half of total estimates for Western Europe, it said.