Exploit potential of shale gas: US to India and China

Lalit K Jha
Washington, Aug 25 (PTI) US has offered to India and
China its expertise and technical knowhow to exploit the
full potential of shale gas to reduce dependency on foreign
oil and move towards its goal of energy independence.
As such the Obama Administration has proposed do a
resource assessment of certain shale basins in India by the US
Geological Survey, and provide workshops to train Indian
geophysicists on how to do their own resource assessments.
"What we have offered to India is to bring our best
knowledge about how you make that estimate, how you make that
resource evaluation, and to bring our scientists to them to
talk about that," US Coordinator for International Energy
Affairs David Goldwyn said.
"We are waiting for India's reaction and we’re hopeful
that they’ll do it.
"I think you can't tell until you drill, but the shale
presence is there," Goldwyn told reporters on the sidelines of
the Global Shale Gas Initiative Conference.
Representatives from 17 countries including India and
China are participating in the two-day international
conference hosted by the US State Department as part of its
aim to help countries around the world to reduce dependence on
foreign oil.
The US shale gas phenomenon has transformed global
energy markets, he said, adding that because the United States
has the technology to develop efficiently large quantities of
gas from shale, global prices of liquefied natural gas have
decreased.
"Gas has become cheaper. Gas is now competitive with
coal on a BTU basis, which means that countries that might use
coal can now not make an economic choice, but on a competitive
basis choose gas for their next level of power generation,"
Goldwyn said.
India has a licensing round probably in September, he
said, adding the pace of development will probably come with
whether there's success in these first basins, whether there's
an assessment of what they have.
"Reliance has made an investment in a US company to
learn the technology, and what a lot of countries are doing is
they're trying to find out how it's done.
"So it'll depend on success and, in India in
particular, depend on the price of gas," the US official said.
Goldwyn said the US had entered into a memorandum of
understanding with India during the visit of Prime Minister,
Manmohan Singh, to Washington last November.
The US has also signed a similar MoU with China.
"We have MOUs signed with China and India, but there
are follow-up steps that are needed to begin implementation,
although, we will have our first workshop in China, November
9th to 11th so we'll be underway in China," Goldwyn said. PTI