GASH: Leaving a Mark on the Industry

“Gas Shales in Europe” group hopes to become an honest broker

Does Europe want it?

That was the question posed by Prof. Dr. Brian Horsfield, who contended shale gas could bring sustainability, competitiveness and security of supply to Europe.

“Russia, Qatar and Iran being major suppliers is kind of a warning flag,” he said. “On a country-by-country basis, you see a climb in renewables but even in Germany they’re only at 7%; hard coal, mineral oils, lignite and nuclear are the major fuel sources there.”

That was just one of Horsfield’s arguments. In his presentation entitled Shale Gas in Europe: Some Pragmatic Perspectives to delegates at the ShaleTech 2010 conference in Vienna, Austria, Horsfield, Project Leader from Gas Shales in Europe (“GASH”), explained how the group had brought players together from the research and business communities to assess the potential of shale gas in Europe.

“We keep coming back to this picture which shows that energy is a critical factor for wealth and stability. Access to energy resources is clearly crucial. We’re working with industry to develop new concepts and apply them,” he said of GASH.

The association, according to Horsfield, comprises 10 organizations, which meant that it had about EUR 5 million at its disposal. He listed the geological surveys, scientific groups, and universities and academic organizations involved. The project is sponsored by several oil & gas majors.

Horsfield noted that eight of the top 12 US gas fields were unconventional, with the Barnett shale ranked #3.

“The rapid increase in natural gas production is coming exclusively from the unconventional sector,” he explained. “This has been the major thrust for whether gas shales will be produced worldwide.”

“Western Europe has maybe 510 trillion cubic feet,” said Horsfield. “Advanced Resources has doubled that estimate, but nobody really knows.”

“These black splotches indicate organic rich shale,” Horsfield said of an illustration. Geological surveys are actually sitting on a lot of information as to where these shales are - we’re enlisting their services to provide background data.”

“The ‘landgrab’ has happened,” said Horsfield who showed delegates a map of Europe indicating the various concessions. He spoke about the geological framework in each of those countries.

“How different they are than in the US is a question we typically get. I’m not going to attempt to make a detailed comparison,” he said, making mention of Poland’s Silurian and Germany’s Namurian shales.

“In terms of scale, let’s do a geographic comparison. This block in Texas is 100 by 30-50 miles, and the red dots (which were numerous) denote sweet spots, so that’s a reasonable piece for exploration.”

He said that Devon Energy had more than 700,000 acres leased in the Barnett shale, contrasting that with Exxon-Mobil’s 750,000 acres in the lower Saxony basin in Germany.

“The prospective areas cover hundreds of square kilometers in size, the pieces up for grab are large. They’re centered on around 10% total organic content (TOC).”

He said that the GASH was most familiar with the Mikulov marl in Austria, and the graptolitic shale in Poland among others, noting that their range of TOCs was broad.

“I keep coming back to the Barnett as a reference point,” he explained. “The kerogen type is similar to the Barnett, in the sweet spots the hydrogen index is very low: it’s similar stuff, the same fingerprints keep coming up.”

“That’s the industrial part, this is why the companies move in – there’s some really good prospectivity there.”

He said the GASH project was set up because of his organization’s experience in conventional rock systems, that it understood the complexity and was trying to gain an understanding into the processes of shale gas.

Environmental issues, Horsfield continued, were also given shrift within an R&D context. “With so much heterogeneity there’s a lot to learn. It’s not just importing American know how but also to improve upon it. There are still a lot of failures in Barnett and others, so there is room for improvement,” he added.

According to him, there is a whole range of energy research aspects that must be covered, like disposal, safeguarding, and the informing of government bodies.

He recalled communication about shale exploration with a German ministry official, who asked: ‘Are you working on environment, and if not, why?’

“We have to bring that online quickly,” said Horsfield, who explained, “the media is becoming very much aware of the advantages and disadvantages of shale gas.”

He mentioned the blazing taps on show in the film Gasland. The environment and acceptance issues, he said, included induced seismicity, radon and catastrophic leakage.

“In various countries there are various regulations,” said Horsfield, “but at the political level it is good to involve the ‘social scientists’ – the media and the general public.”

Horsfield recalled a carbon capture storage example and public reaction in connection with it. “It was presented to the general public as ‘we can bury our problem’ but all the activists stepped in and called it a ‘CO2 time bomb’.”

“All of this hit the media, but we’re not big bad industry in theory,” he explained of GASH, “so we did local outreach with the public; our key messages were ‘this is helping to reduce climate change,’ and ‘this is a research project.’”

Horsfield said this approached worked with local people, but that industry acted rather clumsily and did not perform such local outreach. He presented one of the outcomes in the media: a cartoon from the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung showing animals flying out of their holes from the underground CO2.

“And now the CO2 issue is dead,” he said.

Horsfield said this raised the issue of how industry should deal with the general public.

“The profit motive on the side of industry is often waved when there is a conflict. Everybody knows Greenpeace lies but because it’s in a good cause they’re kind of forgiven. Meanwhile, the media are paid by the hit, the more hits on their websites, the more in their bank account, so it’s in their interest to write something scandalous.”

To address such aspects, Horsfield said that one project in progress from GASH was tentatively called “GASHnet,” which would communicate with all parties affected by shale gas development - industry, academia, geologic surveys, and including Greenpeace, and the public.

“Economic and societal benefits have to be presented,” he said. “Transparency and best practices sound very idealistic but they are important. Process understanding will improve success, while environmental issues and acceptance need to be linked with upstream research now.”

Regarding the public, he admitted, “We’re not sure that they care about the science. The industry is not trusted anyway, so no matter what it says it doesn’t seem to count for anything. People question our neutrality - how you do the PR I don’t know, but that point shouldn’t be underestimated.”

Still, Horsfield insisted: “Shale gas could be another success story. We have to convince people that we’re working with industry and not for it.”