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China has the greatest potential for shale gas
The list of countries with potential for shale gas continues to grow, however a new study reveals that the player with the largest reserves of shale gas may well be China. The IEA predicts that China has recoverable resources at 50tcm, with more than 70% in it’s shale beds. However to date only a handful of test wells for shale gas have been sunk, and it looks as though the geology may make it harder to get at than America’s.
Other known shale gas resources exist in quantity in Canada and Mexico. Australia and South Africa also has big deposits, (though a fracking moratorium was announced last year). Other potential sources are in Argentina and India, whilst Algeria and Libya are currently producing. Even Russia and Saudi Arabia, the largest conventional oil producers, have the stuff.
China’s ambitious targets for generating electricity and fuelling its expanding fleet of cars using gas, with a five year plan to grow gas energy consumption from 4% to 8% by 2016. The countries gas consumption has grown 15% a year since 2000 with the accelerated economic growth.
