Evidence that the UK might be close to experiencing the energy revolution that has transformed the US market continues to mount. IGas, an energy company awarded shale gas licences in Northern England by UK authorities, has announced it has found enough gas reserves to meet the UK's needs for 60 years. IGas says there may be up to 170 trillion cubic feet (4,810 cubic km) of gas in the areas it is licensed to explore. "We (Britain) import around 1.5 trillion cubic feet, we consume around 3 tcf a year, so assuming you could recover technically something like 10 to 15 per cent of the shale gas in place, then it could New estimates show there is a massive amount of untapped shale gas in the Northwest of England. Source: Getty Images move import dependency out for about 10 to 15 years," chief executive Andrew Austin told the BBC. The firm has previously estimated there was about nine trillion cubic feet of shale gas. The 170 trillion cubic feet figure puts the firm close to rival Cuadrilla Resources, which calculates its prospective gas reserves are nearly 200 tcf. It remains unclear however how much of the gas will be economically extractable. The UK's domestic supplies of gas have declined since the mid-2000s. UK Chancellor George Osborne expressed hope in his March budget that the UK can replicate the US shale gas boom and reduce its dependency on imported gas. There is a considerable scepticism however from within the coalition and from environmental groups, worrying that the country would lower its commitment to low-carbon energy, and the impact of fracking on air quality and groundwater. Gas and oil discoveries in shale rock in the US have significantly reduced gas prices. The International Energy Agency (IEA) has estimated the US will overtake Russia as the world's biggest gas producer by 2015, and Saudi Arabia as the world's biggest oil producer by about 2020. Shale gas discoveries in the UK are still in their infancy but expectations are rising within the industry that they could revolutionize the UK's future energy supplies.
