Obama's Speech in Beijing Promoting Shale Gas Development in China

It was exciting to see Sino-US collaboration to develop shale gas resources in China was included in both the two countries joint statement and President Obama’s speech at the press conference. All the driving elements are now gaining sufficient strength to vigorously and quickly push shale gas development forward in China.

When the US got large volumes of shale gas of five billion cubic feet per day within around one decade, China should more likely be able to achieve that production level with less than 10 years. In addition, China could produce another 5 billion cubic feet per day coal-bed methane before 2020. Those unconventional gas supplies would significantly change the current conventional view on China’s gas future with totally different future gas scenarios, either raising gas consumption to a new high or cutting down dependence on gas import, producing profound influences on both the domestic and international gas markets, players and prices. A currently common outlook is that gas will account for around 8 percent of the total energy mix and gas import dependence will go up to 40 percent in China by 2020.