Social Capital Difficult to Enjoy Shale Gas "Cake"

2020 is expected to produce 100 billion cubic meters of capital technical threshold superposition of property rights

The “12th Five-Year Plan” for shale gas, which may be seen as a possibility to change the domestic energy structure and thus get rid of the current foreign dependence on ultra-high oil, has finally been introduced. However, many factors such as the funding technology threshold, shortage of water resources, and uncertainty of property rights are positive. Become unsolved problems before planning.

The “Shale Gas Development Plan (2011-2015)” (hereinafter referred to as the “Planning”) officially announced by the National Energy Administration recently proposed that shale gas exploration and exploitation will be fully open to both foreign and private capital, and will strive to achieve an annual output of 6.5 billion by 2015. Cubic meters, establish a complete shale gas industry policy system, and strive to achieve a total of 60 billion to 100 billion cubic meters of mining in 2020.

Planning: The “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” focuses on exploration shale gas is natural gas extracted from the shale layer and is a clean and efficient energy resource. The "Plan" proposed that during the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" period, it is necessary to complete the exploration of 600 billion cubic meters of shale gas geological reserves and 200 billion cubic meters of recoverable reserves, and to achieve an annual output of 6.5 billion cubic meters of shale gas in 2015, basically completing the national To investigate and evaluate the potential of shale gas resources, master the potential and distribution of shale gas resources, and establish a sound shale gas industry policy system; strive to achieve a total mining output of 60 to 100 billion cubic meters by 2020, in other words, “twelve The core task of shale gas development during the "V" period was exploration, and the mass production that had previously received much attention had to wait until the "13th Five-Year Plan" period.

Although more work is currently involved in exploration, Han Xiaoping, Chief Information Officer of China Energy Network, is still optimistic about the development of shale gas. “100 billion cubic meters of shale gas is equivalent to 85 million tons of diesel, increasing the supply of natural gas resources, can ease the contradiction between natural gas supply and demand, and adjust the energy structure.”

The data from the China Investment Advisor also showed that China’s natural gas production exceeded 100 billion cubic meters for the first time in 2011, reaching 102.53 billion cubic meters, and 31 billion cubic meters of natural gas were imported throughout the year.

Policies: Encouraging Diversified Capital Participation In order to achieve the above goals, the “Planning” not only emphasizes the need to develop entry barriers and qualifications, but also encourages diversified capital to participate in the development. It also clarifies a series of promotion policies.

These include increasing the national capital investment in shale gas resource survey and evaluation, increasing shale gas exploration and development technology and technological breakthroughs, and developing key technologies for shale gas exploration and development in major projects of “large-scale oil and gas fields and CBM development”. "As a key project. On the other hand, a new mechanism for shale gas exploration and development was established, including accelerating the introduction of powerful enterprises to participate in the exploration and development of shale gas, promoting the diversification of investment entities, setting the entry threshold and qualifications, substantially increasing the minimum exploration investment, and eliminating “race horses”. Enclosures and other phenomena.

In terms of monetary subsidies, the "Planning" also proposes to study and formulate shale gas specific subsidy policies with reference to the coalbed methane fiscal subsidy policy; for self-use equipment that cannot be produced domestically under the encouragement projects such as shale gas exploration and development projects (including equipment) The imported technology) is exempted from tariffs in accordance with the relevant regulations; priority is given to the approval of land use.

Difficulties: Difficulties in capital-consuming property rights, etc. Despite many encouraging policies, experts in the industry believe that the four major problems of capital, technology, property rights, and water resources will be the biggest bottleneck in the development of shale gas diversification.

Lin Boqiang, director of the China Energy Economic Research Center at Xiamen University, told reporters that because of the existence of capital and technical barriers, whether shale gas can be profitable in the first few years is still uncertain. Despite the bright prospects, whether diversified capital can “hold off” is a problem. Secondly, shale gas pricing is not clear. Although the "planning" clearly states that "shale gas ex-factory prices are market-priced", there is no explanation for pricing.

"In addition to the introduction of technology, if we do not solve the problem of water resources, the exploration goals proposed by the "planning" are meaningless." Lin Boqiang told reporters that China is inspired by the United States inspired the development of shale gas is a good thing, but as the most mature Of the shale gas mining technology - hydraulic fracturing technology, which will consume a lot of water resources, and the method of cracking underground rock formations may also pollute groundwater, which is the largest in China facing severe water shortages. The test.

"In the future, technology and funding will not be the limiting factor for China's completion of shale gas development targets, and water shortages will occur," Lin Boqiang said.

In addition to the above three items, Lin Boqiang is most worried about the uncertainty of property rights. “Shanxi Coal Resource Integration Action (commonly known as 'Shanxi Coal Reform') has collected a number of local small-scale coal mine property rights that year, and this experience has greatly reduced the confidence of private enterprises in investing in the energy industry.”

It is reported that the Ministry of Land and Resources will issue detailed rules on access thresholds in the near future. (Reporter Qi Lin Intern Xiaohan Wang)

Enterprises respond to private enterprises: It is difficult to get involved in shale gas exploration and development. Despite the shale gas development plan (2011-2015) and the statement made by the Ministry of Land and Resources regarding the threshold, it shows that private enterprises enter shale gas. Welcomed, but some of the heads of private companies admitted in an interview with reporters that due to the long recovery cycle and combined with technical and financial obstacles, it is currently difficult to successfully enter the field.

“We are optimistic about the prospects for the development of shale gas, but even if the state encourages the participation of private capital, it is impossible to participate in the strength of the current company.” A person in charge of a privately-owned oil company who did not wish to be named told reporters that on the one hand his company did not Mature technology; On the other hand, shale gas development is heavily invested at the initial stage, and the input-output efficiency is highly uncertain. As a private enterprise, the financial strength may be difficult to achieve. “Now, for companies, shale gas development is like a glass door, and we can see it inside, but we can't get in. In recent years, we can only see the ocean sigh.” He resigned. In addition to technology, there are problems with money.

“Currently, shale gas has reached downstream consumer terminals in three ways: compression, liquefaction and pipeline transportation. However, the cost of compression and liquefaction is high, and pipeline transportation faces the problem of pipeline use rights. Although the national policy on private capital in pipeline transportation, use There is no restriction on the above, but currently the use rights of the national main pipelines are basically in the hands of state-owned oil companies, and private oil companies are difficult to intervene,” an industry source told reporters.

In this regard, Baker Hughes, North American customer service director of the oil service company in the US, suggested that shale gas development technology is in the hands of oil field service companies. Small-scale shale gas development companies generally rely mainly on oil field service companies. Technology to help develop shale gas. Now the four large oil service companies in the United States have already entered China and are keeping a close eye on the development of shale gas. Chinese private oil companies can cooperate with these foreign capitals on technical cooperation.

How the shale gas becomes money, the industry insiders said that the shale gas can be transformed in situ by promoting natural gas distributed energy and natural gas power stations.