French Agency to Assess Impact of Unconventional Projects

The Institut Francais du Petrole Energies Nouvelles, a state-controlled energy research organization, has been tasked with examining potential unconventional oil and gas projects in France and their effect on the environment.

“The potential of these new resources still has to be defined,” the Rueil-Malmaison-based organization said today in its 2011 outlook of energy markets. “The different geological basins appear to be favorable for development.”

The French energy ministry has awarded exploration permits in recent years to energy companies searching for so-called unconventional oil and gas in shale rock.

The prospect of drilling in France has sparked opposition among some environmental groups worried about possible contamination of water supply by chemicals used to extract the hydrocarbons.  The French government has rejected a call for a moratorium on shale gas drilling. (Read More HERE)

Toreador Resources Corp. and Vermilion Energy Inc. are among companies which have snapped up licenses in the region around the French capital known as the Paris Basin to explore for oil trapped in shale rock. GDF Suez SA and Total SA were amongst companies awarded licenses in southern France to search for shale gas.

Industry is paying for the IFP to carry out a three-year study of the Lias rock formation in France that could hold the shale deposits, the organization said. The government asked it to carry out an inventory of potential deposits.

“The biggest question is what is the rate of recovery of the deposits,” Olivier Appert, head of the IFP, said at a press conference today. “The process of fracturing rock to get at the deposits has been mastered.”