Denmark to See First Shale Gas Well

Denmark will see it first shale gas well following the granting of a permit to the Danish unit of Total SA by a city council in northern Denmark.

The municipality of Frederikshavn in Jutland approved test-drilling for shale gas reserves in nearby Dybvad, The decision follows deliberations that commenced in 2012 and involved 1,500 man hours of investigations including the commissioning of a report to evaluate potential environmental ramifications.

“We had a good and factual debate,” Birgit Stenbak Hansen, Frederikshavn’s mayor, told Jyllands-Posten newspaper. “I am pleased that we can move on in this case after preparing meticulously for the council.”

Only four of the 31 city council members in Frederikshavn voted against the project.

Municipality spokeswoman Karin Rasmussen said that that Total will only be permitted to drill conventional wells for testing, without the use of hydraulic fracturing.

Rasmussen said any plans for fracking would require a separate environmental studies and permits.

In 2012, France Total E&P Denmark and the Danish state-owned Nordsøfonden reportedly committed €27 million into search for shale gas in the northern part of the Jutland peninsula. The companies hold two exploration licenses and have committed themselves to a test drilling in this license area, which is the most mature of the two licenses.

According to project coordinator Henrik Nicolaisen from France Total E&P Denmark, there might be about five times as much shale gas onshore as the country has recovered from the North Sea so far.

He estimates the chances of finding commercially interesting quantities to about 20% and in case of success production might start in 2020.

In December 2013, The US Geological Survey estimated that the Alum Shale in Denmark contained 6.9 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas,