Taking Advantage of Natural Gas in Europe
Speaking about “European Security of Supply, Now & the Future,” at the European Autumn Gas Conference, Linda DuCharme, Director Europe, Russia & Caspian, ExxonMobil Gas & Power Marketing showed a slide from the International Energy Agency which depicted “Remaining Recoverable Resource.”
“The world does indeed have abundant resource,” she remarked of natural gas, “in all regions of the world. In total there are 800 TCM. We could develop 250 years at current demand levels. Unconventional is significant, making up 50% of remaining recoverable reserves and half of that is shale gas.
“This industry is used to challenges,” she said. “I think it’s actually a promising time in the natural gas industry.”
She observed that the industry had merged into a global market for natural gas and Europe was positioned to take advantage of that.
In terms of natural gas demand, DuCharme said: “We need abundant demand to make sure that the resource is developed. You see continued growth in all regions of the world.”
She noted that natural gas use could help to reduce carbon emissions.
“In order to secure those benefits, Europe needs to continue to take advantage of those resources,” she opined.
“For security of supply you need to have diversity of supplies,” she continued. “Europe’s in an enviable geographic position. As new supplies come on stream, we see how LNG has been diverted from North America to Europe and other places.
“There’s lots of infrastructure in Europe, existing storage, and pipeline as well as planned infrastructure, which allow natural gas to flow where it’s needed. We need a stable investment climate and competitive markets,” said Ms. DuCharme.
She said that given Europe’s dependence on imported gas it was natural for the continent to want to develop its unconventional potential. “It’s going to be important to manage our expectations of this resource in the near term. The industry has to deal with the questions about development. Legitimate questions are being asked, and we’ve got to provide adequate answers to government and the public.”
According to her, shale gas operators needed to adopt best practices to ensure the protection of groundwater aquifers. “They must conduct baseline studies on environmental impacts; when we’re through, those can demonstrate that we have no adverse impacts on the environment,” she explained.
She added that ExxonMobil was a supporter of disclosing all the contents of fraccing fluid on a well-by-well basis.
“As an industry we need to educate the public that it can be produced in a safe and environmentally sustainable manner.”
She received immediate positive feedback from conference chairman James Ball of Gas Strategies.
“It’s high time that a leading producer of shale say what you’ve just said; saying we’re going to embrace clean water and transparency is exactly the sort of thing that we need to do. It raises our game in telling our story,” he said of the natural gas industry.