Opinion | For China, choosing green hydrogen over shale gas should be a no-brainer
Fracking is technically challenging, expensive and polluting. Much better to devote more resources to green hydrogen
It has been more than a decade since China started its shale gas trajectory. Now all of that hard work is paying off. Shale gas made up an estimated 12 per cent of China’s natural gas output last year, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA).
Notably, some of China’s most prolific shale basins are at least twice as deep underground as many US shale gas plays, making exploration and production not only more difficult but also more capital expenditure intensive.
The sector also has significant aboveground challenges. These include topography, high population density and lack of access to water sources. Though the situation has improved, there is still weak fiscal and regulatory support for the sector and this has kept development costs high while eating into profits.
But since 2013, Chinese companies have gained a greater geological understanding of shale formations and deployed more advanced hydraulic and automation techniques, steadily growing their shale gas production.
China Petroleum and Chemical Corp (Sinopec) and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), state-run energy giants tasked with developing China’s shale gas resources, saw shale gas production last year jump to 2.51 billion cubic feet per day (bcf/d), up markedly from just 0.02 bcf/d in 2013, according to S&P Global Commodity Insights.
