UK Shale Well Boosts Igas Hopes

UK explorer Igas announced June 27 "highly encouraging core analysis results" from its SR-01 exploration well at Springs Road in North Nottinghamshire, UK. The well is a significant step forward in the development of shale gas in the East Midlands, it said.

The Springs Road well was drilled as a vertical, cored exploration well in PEDL140 in the centre of the Gainsborough Trough basin and hit all three of its targets: the Bowland Shale; the Millstone Grit and the Arundian Shale. The well drilled into the primary target, Bowland, found 429 metres of hydrocarbon-bearing shales. 

The results from core analysis are extremely positive and confirm that a significant hydrocarbon resource is present in the Gainsborough Trough, it said.      

The key characteristics of the Bowland Shale in SR-01 match those in the Permian and the Marcellus in the US. The core results indicate a mature, organic rich source rock with low clay content and good porosity confirming favourable gas resource density and suitability for fracking.

Igas will make a further announcement and full technical presentation of the results, including comparison with analogous US shale plays, in the third quarter of 2019.

Igas CEO Stephen Bowler said the "positive dataset is highly promising and materially advances our understanding of the hydrocarbon resources contained within the shales in the Gainsborough trough, where Igas holds a large acreage position. We were particularly pleased with operational performance during drilling leading to the well costs coming in about a fifth below budget.

"The independent Committee on Climate Change recently reported that by 2050 we will still require some 70% of the gas we currently consume but unless we develop our domestic resources we will need to import 86% of that gas from overseas.  

"These results demonstrate that within the East Midlands we potentially have the resources to produce gas, creating jobs and tax revenues while reducing our greenhouse gas emissions."