New UK consortium to recover gas from shale without fracking

Following the recent UK government moratorium on hydraulic fracturing (fracking), two UK-based companies – Global Exploration Services and Zorin Eco Technologies – have formed a new consortium that has developed a new rig and operating methodology to safely recover gas from UK shale without fracking and is therefore claimed to preclude any possibility of fracking-induced seismic events, ground water contamination or other attendant difficulties. Current values of possible recoverable gas in the UK, independently peer reviewed, are in the order of £0.5tn, the consortium reports.

Jim Hughes, Chief Technical Director of Zorin Eco Technologies, says: ‘We believe this is a technical breakthrough which will revolutionise oil and gas drilling technologies.’ Dr Mike Flannery FEI, Managing Director, continues: ‘It is hoped that the new drilling rig and novel drilling methods will allow a three times increase in gas production at a quarter of the conventional cost for every well. All achieved, he says ‘with a non-polluting, zero carbon and unobtrusive drilling rig, which is much smaller than those in conventional UK use’.

Dr Flannery also reports that the Drilling Technology Research Institute (DTRI) of Shengli, China, the drilling research arm of Sinopec, has expressed interest in the new technology.