Friday 18 February 2011

American shale gas success stops Russia´s Shtokman gas project?


The predicted reverberations of the succesful American shale gas exploration are already to be seen in Russia. It looks  more and more likely that Gazprom will never launch its troubled Shtokman gas field. Ant this is only the beginning. Wait until shale large scale shale gas production starts in Poland and other European countries ...

MOSCOW — Russia's energy giant Gazprom may decide to delay the launch of its troubled Shtokman gas field by two more years because of the United States' rapid development of shale gas, a report said Thursday.
The Barents Sea project has experienced repeated delays caused by the 2008 global financial crisis and the subsequent development of shale gas in the United States, Canada and other Western countries.

Read the entire piece here.

In an article in the FT, Gazprom export chíef Alexander Medvedev tries to belittle the importance of shale gas, but what else is he supposed to say:

Mr Medvedev predicted that, as with the internet bubble, many shale gas companies would be forced out of the industry. "The massive production of shale gas is impossible against a price which is below $6-$8 per million BTU," he said. "Therefore we do not see in the development of shale gas any threat to us."

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