Editorial

Abstract

The ripples from the US ‘shale boom’ have spread around the world. In almost every industrial and industrializing country, governments and their peoples have taken a view on the potential opportunity and the desirability of exploiting this resource. Latin American governments tend to take a positive view, while European ones have displayed more varied outlooks. Here in East Asia, from where we write, most governments are keen to expand the use of natural gas to replace their traditional reliance on coal, which is recognized as highly polluting. They are also looking for ways to lower their energy import dependency and would prefer to rely on their domestic resources where available. Accordingly, those who possess shale gas are keen to assess their potential and where viable, bring it into production as soon as possible. Notwithstanding this sudden surge of interest in shale gas, East Asia is not new to the task of exploiting unconventional gas reserves. In China, PetroChina and Shell have been producing tight gas for more than 15 years, and the search for coal bed methane (CBM) dates back to the early 1990s. Indonesia also began to issue licences for CBM exploration in 2007, and Vietnam followed a year later. However, in all the three countries CBM production has yet to add significantly to domestic gas output, though China may be on the edge of success. In contrast, China’s national oil companies began their search for shale gas in 2008 and the first formal contracts were granted in 2011. Shale gas production reached 200 million cubic metres in 2013, but is reasonably expected to exceed 5 billion cubic metres in 2015. Indonesia and Vietnam followed China by issuing licences for shale gas in 2013, and other countries in the region, such as Thailand, Myanmar and Cambodia, may also have potential for shale gas.