Igas solve the energy crisis!
(More industry fluff!)
We were tremendously excited to read in the Igas Full Year Results released on 6th April that they believe that UK shale gas will not only solve the UK energy crisis but will also deliver massive export potential.
They tell us that
5 pads with just 16 wells on each would supply 3 million homes with gas
So if 80 wells will supply 3 million homes, then Cuadrilla’s plan for 4,000 wells (100 well pads with 40 wells on each) would supply 150 million homes, right?
We only have 27.8 million households in the UK so presumably the surplus will keep our industry going and give us plenty to export too.
The only problem is that 153 million households-worth at 12000 kwh a household would mean we would have a supply of over 6 tcf a year. UK total annual gas demand is about 2.7tcf a year.
To put it another way they seem to be claiming that Igas and Cuadrilla between them could deliver more than twice the UK total gas demand a year (presumably on an ongoing basis), and not even the craziest industry PR would try to claim that with a straight face.
Alternatively to supply 3 million homes with 12000 kwh gas per year would require ongoing production of 118 bcf of gas. According to Cuadrilla’s modelling this would need 240 wells not 80 to reach that amount for 1 year, would not happen for 7 years, and even then production would drop off a cliff face because of the hyperbolic production declines typical of shale wells straight afterwards.
The suggestion by Igas that they could start supplying 3 million homes within 18 months is less than convincing to put it politely!
