Bishop Hill More Kahya
Aug 13, 2013 Energy: gas I'm somewhat intrigued by Damian Kahya's article on shale gas - the one I mentioned briefly yesterday. According to a tweet from Kahya it's unclear if Poyry were discussing the effect of Lancashire shale or European shale on prices. I don't know about you, but I found the text fairly clear - they were discussing the effects of Lancashire shale. Don't get me wrong, I don't think shale exploitation will cause a price collapse as it did in the USA, but an increase in supply will presumably have some effect.
On the same subject, here are some other things that Kahya had to say about shale prices.
UK shale gas is unlikely to be cheap
It’s hard to say for sure – because we are so far from the production stage – but most experts including Bloomberg, the IEA, the EIA and Ernst and Young, appear to think that shale gas production in the UK is unlikely to be anywhere near as cheap as it was in the US. In fact, according to their analysis, the cost of extraction alone may be higher than the current wholesale cost of gas.
That’s partly because UK shales are deeper and geologically more complex than those in the US and because UK shale gas is more tightly regulated – as the Prime Minister himself observed. We also lack the kind of onshore oil and gas infrastructure which made shale gas in the US economically viable.
Now this is a whole different kettle of fish - here we are being led to believe that all these firms like Cuadrilla and iGas are soon going to be running for the hills because the cost of extraction is going to exceed current wholesale prices.
On the face of it, this the case is surely not so clearcut. Why would anyone invest in UK shale if it was likely to be uneconomic? Centrica must have had access to Cuadrilla's test drilling results in Lancashire before they bought into the company. Kahya's take on the issue doesn't pass the sniff test.
Now I've had a glance through some of the documents linked by Kahya and can find little that supports his case. Drilling down, there seems to be a case that UK shale will be more expensive than the USA, but the report involved - from Wood MacKenzie - seems to be paywalled. The press release is here. Does anyone have access to it?
In the meantime, see what you reckon to the documents that Kahya links to, which he says support the case for shale gas being uneconomic in the UK.
Reader Comments (45)
Much of the economic argument for the viability of renewebles has been the ever rising price of fossil fuels as increasing demand meets falling supply. Shale doesn't have to do much more than stop the price of gas and oil rising. That alone is going to make most of the renewable economic models look doubtful.
The greens will do almost anything to keep the price of energy high to reduce its use. They are trying to stop coal exports from the USA, opposing natural gas with fabricated documentaries against fracking (one financed by middle east oil), opposing oil transportation & export.
In short this is just another battlefront in their war against civilization
Just for the record.
I am not arguing that fracking 'will not be economic,' and - in case it's not clear - I'll make that clear in the piece. I am also - like you - waiting for further word from Poyry to resolve our difference of interpretation. I spoke to them when the Lancashire shale report came out, that was what they told me, but if I'm wrong, i'll correct.
What I am saying is that, to my reading, there doesn't appear to be much evidence that UK fracking will lower gas bills as it did in the US. For a few reasons - because the UK market is connected to a wider European market, because UK extraction is likely to be more expensive and because UK fracking in the south is for oil, not gas, so it's apples and pears to conflate that with gas bills.
But that is not to say it's not 'economic'. Indeed higher or stable wholesale gas prices are exactly what a UK investor in UK shale gas or shale oil would want. I do discuss the impacts of dramatic global action on climate change on the economics of unconventional gas production - I think it's fair to say that you would regard such action as unlikely and therefore immaterial.
Aug 13, 2013 at 9:35 AM | Damian Kahya
...
Thank you for posting here ... but let's face it anything is cheaper than the renewable energy push. Without the financial support of government through taxation and subsidy, it would not get off the ground. The energy policy is a complete and utter shambles.
Are these "experts" not the same ones that were predicting peak oil? So their expertise seems to be tempered by innate pessimism.
Damian Kahya: Can I add to Streetcred's thanks for taking part here maximum respect for putting a link to this post so prominently on your own. We may have to revise our opinion of Greenpeace if you keep on like this. :)
Greenpeace are opposed to exploration for and exploitation of shale oil and gas. They will say and do virtually anything to achieve this (essentially irrational) objectve. Their tactics now follow the trajectory adopted in the late 60s and 70s when they argued that North Sea Oil extraction was too dangerous, too expensive, too harmful ... add in any other scare you can think of. They were wrong then; they are wrong now. They operate much like internet trolls, trying to set up a "debate" the terms of which are always rigged. The merits of any case they make have to judged against the fact that they have an agenda, by which I mean their position will not change, however powerful the counter-argument. In my opinion it is unwise to enagage at all.
Did you mean :
http://www.poyry.com/sites/default/files/imce/files/shale_gas_point_of_view_small.pdf
Damian - as others have said, credit to you for engaging with readers of this blog on the issue.
I think it's quite ironic that a large part of your argument for UK shale gas not being significant economically (and therefore, I assume, not worth pursuing, although you don't quite say that) is that the UK's relatively small contribution to the world gas market can't make much difference. This is diametrically opposite to the argument made for aggressive UK carbon reduction, where bodies like Greenpeace accept that any emissions reductions in the UK are insignificant in the global context, but are necessary anyway as 'moral leadership' etc. Don't you think that the UK should be showing the way on unconventional gas too? :-)
In general, surely the most important economic impact of UK shale gas (and oil) is that it's ours to begin with? Regardless of the retail price paid by consumers, the money stays in the UK economy instead of disappearing abroad, and therefore contributes directly and indirectly to salaries, high-street spending, tax reductions, improved public services, and all the rest. I'm not an economist so stand to be corrected if that's not the case.
Damian~ Thanks for a polite and reasonable explanation of your position.
Damian
Thanks for popping by. If the cost of extraction is higher than the wholesale cost, then extraction is uneconomic. I don't see where you are getting this from.
What kind of infrastructure is being referred to?
Unlike the USA, the majority of the country has access to gas, there are large distribution pipelines across the country and under surrounding oceans, and it is already extracted from the North Sea and from Morecambe Bay only a few miles away. I have often looked at the flares of the gas-rigs after sunset when stood on the hills of, er..., the Trough of Bowland.
In the meantime, see what you reckon to the documents that Kahya links to, which he says support the case for shale gas being uneconomic in the UK.
Since when did a source of energy being uneconomic in the UK stop the govt. from thinking that it was the way to go?
No, I don't think it would be fair to say that.
It would be fairer to say that "the impacts of dramatic global action on climate change on the economics " - a nice euphamism for regulating and taxing the industry ou of existance - would be regarded as illogical, unecessary and counter-productive intervention, central planning and control.
But the salient point in all these types of criticisms coming from shale gas opponents is why are you bothering to write about this at all? This is new for the FT and valuable for investors who may be putting their capital at risk.
This is not of any value to policy makers. Whether it changes prices or not. Whether it produces normal economic profits or not. Those are have no bearing on whether governments should allow exploration and devlopment by private risk capital to proceed.
"UK shale gas is unlikely to be cheap. ..........
That’s partly because UK ........ lack(s) the kind of ..... gas infrastructure which made shale gas in the US economically viable."
Absolute Tosh.
The primary infrastructure requirement for a gas market is a distribution system to its market place.
This map shows just how well the UK is served:-
http://www.see.ed.ac.uk/~mzaiser/4thyear/websites05/MacRonald/Website/3-2.html
Now, compare it with a US distribution system; consider the different scales; and, compare the respective distances to gas consumers.
I agree with Joe Public on this one. In the UK we have the national infrastructure to distribute gas, that's why so many domestic residences use it for heating and hot water, and the local connections should be relatively inexpensive. Shale gas should only be significantly more expensive in the UK if the government hits it with punitive taxation. This assumes that the geological conditions are not significantly more difficult - which will become apparent soon enough.
I sincerely doubt there is viable arithmetic to support the assertion that UK shale gas is uneconomic (i.e. loss-making) - the clear fact is that we won't know - as the Wood McKenzie summary states - until the wells are drilled, stimulated and tested - anything else is FUD spreading BS - which is a Greenpeace specialty - proudly elaborated by their own senior people upon occasion.
This is just the usual sly, mendacious FUD-PR b*ll*cks. Does Mr. Kahya have a crystal ball? Is he on a mission?
I think we know the answer to both those questions
I note that the Wood McKenzie report alludes to a fraught regulatory environment - exactly where Greenpeace / FoE / DECC/ Environment Agency are headed for the purpose of denying the rest of us a resource that we are I think - reasonably entitled to have the benefit of at very little if any real impact to the environment.
thanks for the sane discussion here. I would not dare enter the macroeconomic argument for and against shale. However, what is absent here is its true significance in real-political terms namely energy security. This lies at the basis of why Cameron is so pleased with it in an increasingly unstable political world. If it brings down the price significantly or not, it still, as did coal, means that you could look your opponents in the eye without fear that they would turn off the gas in the middle of winter.
My understanding has always been that shale gas will not be allowed to reduce the price of energy too much because of "international obligations" to keep the price of fossil energy high and that as there is a danger that this would be unacceptable to the electorate our opinions are being deliberately swayed to believing that shale gas will necessarily be very much more expensive.
I don't see much discussion about the indirect benefits of local production. Assuming production is cost-effective, even without any impact on end-user cost, there is a national economic benefit. Low 1000's of direct jobs, and presumably a significant proportion of cost feeds into the local/national economy. Even taking the ridiculous assumption that oil and gas production is not taxed, all those trucks will be paying tax on their fuel. Eventually, a proportion of this tax take has to benefit at least a high proportion of the population...
To be fair to Kahya on the 'distribution network' point - he's saying that US shale gas caused a price crash in the US precisely because the US does NOT have connections to an international gas distribution network. Local production of shale gas swamped the local market, pushing prices down, without affecting the global market. If the UK were able (hypothetically, at this stage) to produce a lot of cheap shale gas, we would make the most money by to drip-feeding it internationally at the current high price, rather than flooding the market and driving prices down.
The greatest direct economic benefit to the country is that not one single penny of tax payer money is required to get the gas out of the ground.
This then means that the HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF POUNDS OF TAX PAYER MONEY can instead be used for other worthwhile initiatives....like leaving it in your pocket instead of in the pockets of the pig troughers.
Additionally, having our own source of plentiful gas also protects us from the vagaries of our enemies (Russia) in that they don't control our gas supply!!!
Mailman
Damien
Thank you for posting on here. it's most welcome. I guess one issue is why it might not reduce gas bills in the UK? Tax and regulatory environment, CCA, etc? Also, there is 'reduction' vs an increase deferred. Plus of course security of supply and who knows what environmental benefit of producing gas in a tightly regulated place like the UK vs ex-Soviet states.
Mentioned in an article by Tony Hayward in The Times on the 30th July - may be another threat to UK shale gas viability in the near future - but this is the potential downward pressure on gas prices This also, of course, has implications for the future of renewables:
"Come wind or sun, we’ll still need fossil fuels"
"The rock bottom natural gas prices seen in America will depress the global price as the shale revolution moves from the US to China, North Africa, South America, Eastern Europe, adding to recent large discoveries of gas in the eastern Mediterranean and East Africa. Liquefying gas for tanker transport is still expensive, but the technology is improving much to the alarm of Russia and Norway who see their pipeline exports being undercut."
Security of supply! Less than 5 months ago - Sunday 24 March 2013:-
UK gas supply pressure eased with arrival of tanker from Qatar
I think "electricty" is Guardian shorthand for electricity?
"Don't get me wrong, I don't think shale exploitation will cause a price collapse as it did in the USA, but an increase in supply will presumably have some effect."
Relying less on imported fuel sounds good to me.
I don't quite understand the economics here - if I'm a bit Rumpole here, then the production of more gas must depress the price of gas. The U.S.A is looking for a way to export there 'bonanza' of shale gas as liquid fuel - would it not be logical to expect, at least in that area, and despite the spot price in Europe, a drop in price? And, therefore, as a corollary, if we can't cheapen the price here, we could export that cheapness? Maybe, my maths is wrong.
The anti-shale gas people use about 50 different arguments against it.
These include...
* Not enough gas to be worthwhile
* Too much gas
* Companies will make a loss
* Profits will go overseas
You can see right away that not all the "problems" are real - they are just neurotic about shale and want to try and rationalise their neurosis.
And many of the "problems" are confined to the companies and their shareholders: for example if a drilling company makes a loss then so what?
Only 'Greenies', not the thousands of UK ctizens who in winter die prematurely through fuel poverty, would look a gift horse in the mouth.
The Chatham House briefing pretty much sums up what the real problem with shale is in their introduction:
If it isn't inefficient, expensive, subsidised and renewable then we shouldn't have it.
It is good to see how well one whose logic is different from that of most on this site (Damian Kahya) is being treated; as I have found out, to express opposing views on other sites can often lead to quite distressing diatribes against you. However, Mr Kahya, as others have already pointed out, how you can claim that the UK does not have the gas infrastructure is a mystery. It should be noted that Cuadrilla et al are proceeding at their own expense – obviously in the hope of getting great rewards at the end of it (this is what is known as “business”, and has been practiced for decades, to great general benefit for humanity) – unlike the “green” “renewables”.
Slightly off-topic – I have received a reply from my MP regarding the “Energy Swindle” of a few weeks back, and was very disappointed to note that the full message had obviously not been read, and the reply was just a diatribe against the opposite party, and bemoaning the government’s lack of push for “renewables” and “green” technology – two of the most over-used misnomers extant at present.
1:16 PM Radical Rodent
RR - I think you are being overly generous - the UK doesn't have an adequate gas distribution infrastructure? - this is a a throwaway lie, and typical of the tortured advocacy in the matter to hand.
Since he's chosen to pay a visit ... perhaps Damian could categorically assure everybody that no part of his organization has ever received funding or benefit in kind from a Venezuelan or Russian gas company or any subsidiary or joint venture they participate in or individuals who are officials or major shareholders thereof ?
over to you Damien?
If shale gas extraction were uneconomic, one of the best ways to kill it would be to let the producers try to compete.
It's the Poyry study that I don't understand. Particularly the top left graph on their page 4. This shows UK gas (shale) prices declining below a level, indexed gas price scenario of 'no shale'. The price comparison is with the National Balancing Point, which is a virtual location. (I suppose the Henry Hub is meaningless since that reflects the impact of US shale). But how is the NBP assumed to behave in the future and what is the indexing?
And how does this square with some of the predictions coming from DECC that support Davey's mantra that by building lots of windmills we'll be actually saving energy consumers money? For that claim to be true, then studies of windmill levelised costs point to gas prices nearly tripling by 2020. If that's the indexing applied to the NBP in Poyry, then fracking will take us 4 % below a tripled gas price in 2020 - quite a good deal, I'd say.
So, just what is the basis for Poyry's price comparison? I haven't got a clue, and I'd welcome any ideas.
Damian Kahya, Greenpeace et al, are laughable
Question from tomo Aug 13, 2013 at 11:28 AM Kahya “Is he on a mission?”
Answer – Of course he is; he’s an evangelical environmentalist, on a mission, working for GreenpeaceLink In such a mental-emotional-ideological state no-holds are barred, no terrible dread-risk hares cannot be set running. Or ‘facts’, ‘economic’ or otherwise, cannot be manufactured. You can hear, and understand Damian Kahya, and Greenpeace’s agenda, beliefs and ideology courtesy of the BBC.
On Tuesday 16th July Jonathan Freedland hosted a BBC Radio 4 “Longview” programme “Shale gas and UK energy resources” Link, based at Wakefield Coal Mining Museum Link.
Freedland, about 21 ½ minutes in, in the context of potential trillions of cubic feet of shale gas, asked Damian Kahya (Greenpeace) what were his worries:
“Well it is easy to see when you’re here (in a coal mine) how embedded we are in the narrative of fossil fuels. We’ve done it ever since the coal mines, then we had North Sea oil and gas, and now we’re very excited because we’ve got shale gas. And I suppose the worry isn’t so much that it will run out, though it may get more-and-more expensive to get out but the worry is that there are new things that we know about now, that we didn’t about in the Industrial Revolution, that the first amongst which is climate change. You can’t endlessly keep burning fossil fuels without causing fairly serious near-on catastrophic impacts to the world. In fact the International Energy Agency (IEA) have said that two-thirds of all the gas we have, never mind the coal, needs to stay down under the ground”
Notice his semiotic (I think this is the right post-modern term) use of the word “narrative”. Coal isn’t the fuel that powered the Industrial Revolution in Britain, and across the world, raised people’s living standards and created the modern world. It’s part of a story. It’s not really real. And there’s more to Damian Kahya’s and Greenpeace’s story, “near-on catastrophic impacts to the world. This global cataclysm is the green trump card, in the misanthropic anti-modern ‘story’ that is climate change.
But shale gas is far ‘cleaner’ than coal says Freedland, so shouldn’t it be welcomed? (22mins 40 secs)
Here’s Damian Kahya’s, and Greenpeace’s answer (he accepts the fact that gas is ‘cleaner’ than coal):
“The problem is though with shale gas, we’re talking about something that will happen over the coming decades. And we’re talking about a situation where, over the next three to four decades we’re trying to get off of all fossil fuels, not just gas for power, but also gas for heating so the risk is that we come into all this shale gas at a time when neither us nor the world need it. In effect it’s a bet that the world isn’t going to try to tackle climate change in a serious way.” (My emphasis)
So, we mustn’t extract the shale gas to create electricity, or heat our homes with it. We must leave it in the ground, see our economy go backwards fast, and shiver in the Winter, for ‘the sake of the planet’. It seems Damian Kahya and Greenpeace have ditched the idea that coal, oil and gas are going to run out as passé (although most environmental interest groups and political parties still bang on about it). As for shale gas being a transition fuel:
“I think the notion that the reason we should get off of fossil fuels because someday it will run out is a discredited notion. It’s a silly idea. We didn’t get off using horses because we ran out of horses. Ultimately I think the reason why you stop using fossil fuels because you find a better alternative, and because you think that this just isn’t the way to go given climate change. And that ultimately it will have major economic risks to keep doing this.”
The Jesuits would be proud of Damian Kahya, and his employer Greenpeace. This is 24 carat casuistry. It’s true that people didn’t stop using horses, because ‘they ran out of horses’. They invented more efficient methods of transport, such as the steam train, and the internal combustion engine-powered car.
Fossil fuels are dense sources of energy, trapped by photosynthesis, millions of years ago, and condensed by geological processes. All (or almost all) the so-called alternative sources of energy are either highly diffuse (wind and waves), and require huge infrastructure to capture and transport, or they’re intermittent (solar and wind), and all are very expensive. So they’re not ”better alternatives”. They’re not ‘alternatives’ at all.
What Damian Kahya, and Greenpeace et al, want is the UK economy to go back to the Middle Ages, and use only diffuse ‘natural’ energy sources. But Damian, in his heart-of-hearts knows that this isn’t possible, and he said so in 2009 when he worked for the BBC Link
So what game is he playing, what world does Damian Kahya inhabit? It’s a childish story-telling green fantasy world. A backwards-looking vision of ‘natural’ energy. A story of childish wish fulfilment. Where wanting something to be true, makes it possible. In the practical, real modern world such behaviour is a complete nightmare. A ‘narrative’ that only has any grip on the media, corporate and political classes, because of the endless trope that, if we don’t end our evil ‘addiction’ to fossil fuel, climate catastrophe will follow (and all/mmost life on earth will end), and this will be our fault. It’s the ultimate green-manufactured horror story. Without the ultimate catastrophe, none of Damain’s, and Greenpeace’s, ‘natural’ nostrums have any credence. They’re laughable.
That’s why BH’s chipping away at the supposed ‘science’ underlying ‘thermogeddon’, and the manufactured risks, is so important.
I'm having trouble following Damian's argument about infrastructure costs and pricing etc.
I'm old enough to remember our old town gas-works - and the awful environmental costs of having such a plant in most every large town in Britain. And that gas was deadly! Then, I remember the discovery of North Sea oil/gas and the plans to change Britain from town gas to NS gas (with which you cannot gas yourself).
Large tracts of the country were excavated to lay huge pipelines and town pavements were ripped up to replace/install better gas pipes (in my town, twice!). We even had platoons of fitters going round exchanging the gas jets in the hobs of gas cookers and boilers (to adapt to the new gas) all over the nation!
I never heard anyone telling us then that we couldn't possibly have NS gas as we hadn't got a viable infrastructure. But then, there are always some people who will spend more money and time telling you why you shouldn't do something than it takes to actually get things done.
tomo, Aug 13, 2013 at 2:13 PM
Took the words right out of my mouth.
China is sitting on an enormous shale gas resource, if and when they commence to exploit that and with the USA being a net exporter of gas and oil, only the big banks with their hedge fund commodity purchasers will be able to attempt to maintain high spot prices - good luck with that lads. Even if OPEC turns off the taps and then don't forget Iranian/Iraqi resources could be world players again. Shale gas/oil more will be discovered this decade.
The nation [Britain] that sinks its taxpayers dollars into renewable energy - are the idiots.
Everything is up in the air but better having gas under our ground here, than in Qatar, Norway, Russia.
From the Chatham House briefing paper:
I think the infrastructure they are talking about is that associated with land based rigs and not the actual distribution of the oil and gas.
Thanks for the link, Mark Piney.
So Damian Kahya was a "business reporter" for the BBC before greenpeace was he? (Or maybe at the same time?)
Quelle surprise. Not.
Kurt Granat.
Precisely. If you believe fracked gas extraction will be uneconomic - and are ideologically opposed to it, as Kahya and Greenpeace are - then the best thing you could do would be to allow it to proceed without government intervention. It would quickly run its course and die before many wells are sunk.
On the point regarding the US gas prices, here Greenpeace and Kahya betray their lack of economic knowledge.
Yes, it is likely that US gas price fell so far because there is no way for supply to move from the US to Europe. D'oh. but that is significant of nothing.
If Britain strikes big in fracked gas and it is tranportable to Europe then it is true that prices would likely fall less than in the US case - but of course they still may if there are Eurpoe wide reserves of a similar scale.
But the economic nub of the case is this. It doesn't matter in a macroeconomic sense if prices fall or not. The country either reps the benefit via an increase in real incomes (as the price of energy falls) giving a small gain to veryone directly, or corprorate profits increase (as Britain sells loads of gas abroad at super-normal profits) giving gains to everyone indirectly (because shareholders will wn, the exchequor will win and linked and associated indistries and services will win - "Balcombe, you're a winner").
So from an economist's point of view, the price elasticity question (whether gas prices in Britian will fall much) is of interest only as a study in welfare economics and income distribution. If the gas is there in as large a quantities as we are led to believe and it is commercially viable to extract, then Britain is a winner. Full stop. The price issue is a red herring.
@Snotrocket
That's because you didn't have anyone as self important as Greenpeace to tell you what is good for you.
By jove, I am sure they would have put a stop to that exploitation you suffered had they the chance at the time.
RE: the update to the earlier article and this one.
Damian's article says
This is where the mistake occurs. Poyry found that shale gas *from Lancashire only* could moderate prices by 2-4%. The baseline considered in the recent report is not 'no shale from Europe' but 'no shale from Lancashire'.The earlier report Poyry did for Ofgem is interesting.(pdf here) This estimated the effect of Europe fracking a lot, a bit and not a lot. The scenario in which Europe fracked a lot was a 'boom' which would see Europe producing 75bcm a year by 2030.(pg 64) In this boom scenario UK gas prices would not rise.(pg 75)
If Caudrilla are serious when they estimate 20bcm a year from Lancashire alone the European 'boom' scenario of 75bcm a year looks like a serious underestimate.
I can't think why any normal, sane person would believe anything coming out of Greenpeace. Greenpeace founder Patrick Moore explained it all:
http://sweetness-light.com/archive/a-founder-explains-why-he-left-greenpeace#.UgpB7m3fL9Y
This, presumably, is the same Greenpeace (must wash my hands now.) who spent 20 years, with suitably manufactured evidence, trying to get chlorine banned from drinking water. In those days hardly anyone was daft enough to listen. But they managed to persuade the government of Peru to stop chlorination, and the result was a cholera epidemic (~1000 dead).
They also persuaded the EU and Israel to ban phthalates (plastic softeners), probably because they couldn't spell it. These are some of the most safety tested compounds ever produced, unlike the substitutes we have to use instead. Israel realized they had been sold a bum steer, and rescinded the ban. The EU aren't that clever.
Am I really supposed to take this crowd seriously?
Shale gas depressed the North American market price because there was no LNG export capacity, and because of over drilling by players like Chesapeake. The over drilling was caused by the 'landrush' to lease drilling rights. Many if not most of those leases contained 'use it or lose it' clauses requiring a certain amount of production by a certain time to preserve the leased mineral rights.
The temporary NA oversupply situation will self correct before the first LNG export hub is completed, and nat gas prices will go back to marginal cost of production, something between $6 and $8 rather than $4 presently. That is because 2/3 of the drill rigs have shifted to tight oil (Bakken), and fracked shale wells have very steep decline curves, typically to less than 10% of initial production within 3 years.
The UK resource is probably economic. Certainly the oil and gas industry thinks so based on presently available information (not much actual drilling yet). This won't necessarily lower UK gas prices, but it will prevent scarcity and prevent future prices from rising as much as they otherwise surely will. So still bad for green agendas despite being generally very good for the UK.