Shale gas in the United Kingdom has attracted increasing attention since 2007, when unconventional onshore shale gas production was proposed. The first shale gas well in England was drilled in 1875. As of 2013 a number of wells had been drilled, and favourable tax treatment had been offered to shale gas producers.
In July 2013, UK Prime Minister David Cameron had claimed that, "fracking has real potential to drive energy bills down". "Shale gas is a resource with huge potential to broaden the UK's energy mix," said the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne. "We want to create the right conditions for industry to explore and unlock that potential in a way that allows communities to share in the benefits. This new tax regime, which I want to make the most generous for shale in the world, will contribute to that. I want Britain to be a leader of the shale gas revolution – because it has the potential to create thousands of jobs and keep energy bills low for millions of people." However, in November 2013 representatives from industry and government, such as former BP Chief Executive and government advisor Lord Browne, Energy Secretary Ed Davey and economist Lord Stern said that fracking in the UK alone will not lower prices as the UK is part of a well connected European market. In July, Osborne said: "This a real chance to get cheaper energy for Britain ... a major new energy source that can reduce energy bills."In August, Cameron said: "If we don't back this technology, we will miss a massive opportunity to help families with their bills ... fracking has real potential to drive energy bills down." In November, "the chairman of the UK's leading shale gas company", Lord Browne, said "Fracking is not going to reduce gas prices in the UK". "The statement by Lord Browne, one of the most powerful energy figures in Britain, contradicts claims by David Cameron and George Osborne that shale gas exploration could help curb soaring energy bills." "North Sea gas didn't significantly move UK prices – so we can't expect UK shale production alone to have any effect," Mr Davey said, pointing out that Britain is just one part of the wider European gas market. He said it was "far from clear that UK shale gas production could ever replicate the price effects seen in the US", where the shale gas boom has seen prices plummet. The comments stand in stark contrast to those of David Cameron, who wrote in the Telegraph last month that "fracking has real potential to drive energy bills down" , there had been no commercial production of shale gas in the UK, with no shale gas reserves booked in the UK. In February 2022 the Oil & Gas Authority (OGA) ordered the "plugging and abandonment" of Britain's shale wells.
Areas The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) originally identified large areas of eastern and southern England as having the "best shale gas potential": However the British Geological Survey report released in October 2014 said that there was little potential for shale gas in the Weald Basin as the field has not yet reached thermal maturation.
Bowland Basin
In August 2010, Cuadrilla Resources started drilling Britain's first shale gas exploration well, the Preese-Hall-1 in the Bowland Basin. The well penetrated 800m of organic-rich shale. The company hydraulically fractured the well in early 2011, but suspended the operation when it triggered two seismic events of magnitudes (ML) 2.3 and 1.5, the larger of which was felt by at least 23 people at the surface. "Twenty-three reports of the shaking caused by the earthquake were used to determine earthquake intensity. We find a maximum intensity of 4 EMS close to the epicentre. This is consistent with a magnitude 2.3 earthquake at a depth of 3.5 km, however, the limited nature of the data means that this is also poorly constrained." Work on the well stopped in May 2011, and the government declared a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing that was sustained until December 2012, subject to additional controls to limit seismic risk.
In September 2011, Cuadrilla announced a huge discovery of 200 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of gas in place under the Fylde Coast in Lancashire. Cuadrilla stated that it would be happy if it could recover 10–20% of the gas in place. Lord Browne ignored this latter point in media interviews, claiming that the Lancashire discovery could satisfy the UK's gas consumption "for 56 years", Browne gets his headline-grabbing figure of 56 years by simply dividing the size of the entire Lancashire find, about 5.6 Tcm, by annual UK gas consumption, currently around 0.1 Tcm. Such a calculation takes no account of the fact that only a minority of the Lancashire discovery is recoverable. with similar, sensational media reports claiming that the find was "so rich it could meet Britain's needs for decades", or that it had "the potential to do more for Lancashire than the cotton industry." (For comparison, the cotton industry in Lancashire employed, at peak penetration in 1811, 37% of the county, or about 70,000 people; Cuadrilla believes fracking will create 1,700 jobs in Lancashire, current population 1.1m). The British Geological Survey—responsible for producing inventories of the UK's mineral resources, and far more cautious in its estimates—felt prompted, however, to re-evaluate its projections in light of the find, which Cuadrilla believes could provide 5,600 jobs in the UK at the peak of production. Industry estimates suggest shale gas in Lancashire alone could deliver £6bn of gas a year for the next three decades.
In 2011 and 2012, IGas Energy drilled a deep well to evaluate shale gas, and found gas shows in the Bowland Shale, with total organic content averaging 2.7%. The formation was reported to be thermally mature, in the wet gas window. IGAS bought large blocks of gas licences in 2011, much of which is reportedly prospective for shale gas. IGas announced that it would drill a well to evaluate shale gas at Barton, near Manchester. Drilling would begin in October 2013, and take two to three months. IGas has not applied for a permit to hydraulically fracture the well.
In July 2013, Cuadrilla applied for a permit to hydraulically fracture its previously drilled well at the Grange Hill site. In April 2014, Cuadrilla published news of their continuing consultation with residents shale gas exploration sites in the Fylde.
As of June 2013, the Bowland Basin was the only area in the UK where wells have been drilled specifically for shale gas. Four wells have been drilled by Cuadrilla Resources, and one by IGAS Energy. None of the wells have produced gas.
In 2019 Lancashire Constabulary estimated the cost of policing fracking in the county, between June 2017 and June 2019, as £11.745m.
Weald Basin
A British Geological Survey report from May 2014 indicated that there was little potential for shale gas fracturing in the Weald Basin, south of London.
Northern Ireland According to February 2013 reports from PricewaterhouseCoopers, there could be £80 billion in reserves in Northern Ireland, although these claims were criticised as being sensationalist.
National Parks: North York Moors, Peak District, South Downs and Yorkshire Dales As of 2015, the Durham Energy Institute examined the likelihood of drilling in National Parks. The parks with geologies of interest are the North York Moors, the Peak District, the South Downs and to the south of the Yorkshire Dales. "This research has found that, of the 15 national parks in Britain, there are: 4 (North Yorks Moors, Peak District, South Downs, and Yorkshire Dales) with rocks of possible interest to companies looking to frack for shale gas, shale oil, or coalbed methane"
Resource estimates According to a 2011 report of the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee, "Shale gas resources in the UK could be considerable—particularly offshore—but are unlikely to be a "game changer" to the same extent as they have been in the US, where the shale gas revolution has led to a reduction in natural gas prices." The Committee's chairperson, Tim Yeo, revised his personal opinion in 2012, however, and argued shale gas is a "game changer" that could "transform the UK's energy independence". Interest in fracking came just as imports of gas to the UK had surpassed domestic production in 2011 for the first time since the 1960s.
Estimating the size of recoverable resource is difficult due to the uncertainty of the usually small percentage of shale gas that is recoverable. In addition, companies may embrace large estimations of reserves to boost share prices. In the United States, companies had been subpoenaed in 2011 on suspicion that the projections they provided to investors, including press-release figures, were inflated. In 2012, national agencies in the U.S. and Poland revised dramatically downward their estimates of shale gas resources.
Part of the problem in evaluation is also the uncertainty of decline curve analysis from early data: shale gas wells can fall off sharply during the first year or two, then level off to a slower decline rate; the shape of the curve, and therefore the ultimate recovery, is difficult to predict from early production rates. A typical well in North Dakota's seemingly prolific Bakken shale oil and gasfield, for example, may produce more than 1,000 barrels of oil per day in year [one], but only 200 in year two, according to Lynn Helms, director of the North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources. Existing fracking methods are capable of extracting only 5 per cent of the oil content of the shale. This can be raised to 15 per cent by multiple extractions from each wellhead. Even then, 85 per cent of the oil remains below ground.
Before drilling, IGas estimated gas in place of 4.6 Tcf in the Ince Marshes site, though it was unlikely that more than 20% of it could be recoverable; After drilling their first well, IGas announced that the estimated gas in place was at least double their previous estimate, without presenting the technical evidence for the revision.
In early 2012, Celtique Energie estimated that there might be as much as 14 Tcf of recoverable reserves potential in countryside south of Horsham, West Sussex. Preliminary estimates in 2011 suggested that there may be £70bn worth of shale gas in South Wales, and 1.5bn bbl oil equivalent in Northern Ireland according to a report by PwC. These are speculative resource estimates not reserves. To date, there are no published commercial reserves of Shale Gas anywhere in Europe.
British Geological Survey In June 2013, the British Geological Survey estimated the gas in place within the Bowland Shale of central Britain to be within the range of 822 Tcf to 2281 Tcf, with a central estimate of , but did not estimate how much of the gas was likely to be recoverable, and cautioned:
"Estimates of the amount of recoverable gas and the gas resources are variable. It is possible that the shale gas resources in UK are very large. However, despite the size of the resource, the proportion that can be recovered is the critical factor."
Industry estimates were that about 10% of gas in place could be extracted. 130 Tcf would supply Britain's gas needs for about 50 years.
Comment from the British Geological Survey (BGS) suggested even more substantial shale gas potential offshore.
BGS updated their estimate in a joint 2019 paper with the University of Nottingham, finding that recoverable gas from shale is "~10 times lower than previously thought" and "considerably below 10 years supply at the current consumption". A 2018 paper by Durham and Newcastle Universities, which considered fracking's surface development requirements and its impact on existing infrastructure found that fracking would provide the equivalent of less than 3 years' gas usage.
US Energy Information Administration