Platts: UK shale gas won't cut prices, no short-term energy fix: OIES

Shale gas production in the UK could boost tax revenues and improve the nation's trade balance, but is unlikely to reduce gas prices, and is no short-term fix for national energy needs, according to Howard Rogers of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.

In a commentary released Wednesday, the director of the OIES gas programme says that the recent "media frenzy" occasioned by new resource estimates for shale gas has ignored "the practicalities" of production.

The British Geological Survey late June said it believed northern England held 1,329 trillion cubic feet of shale gas in place in the ground. If 10% of that could be produced, it would equal almost 50 years of national gas demand.

Cuadrilla Resources has recently applied to conduct a new drilling program, and the UK government is considering financial incentives for the new industry.  MORE