South Africa has been considering shale gas development in the Karoo region. The gas, will be expensive to explore and extract, will be used as part of the country’s energy mix.
So-called “unconventional” deposits of oil and gas are found in shale, a type of layered, fine grained rock.
Dana283/Shutterstock
Gas buried in the Northern Territory’s Velkerri Shale was produced in a “slime world” that existed nearly a billion years before the first complex life on Earth evolved.
South Africa’s Karoo region, in the south west of the country, is thought to have significant reserves of shale gas.
Shutterstock
Woodside’s deferral of its floating gas project in Western Australia is just the latest blow low oil prices have dealt the industry.
Demonstrators gather on the opening day of the public inquiry into Lancashire County Council’s decision to refuse permission for fracking at two sites.
Reuters Staff
Fracking fluids in Marcellus shale have contaminated groundwater but new study finds that the source is likely from surface spills, not leaks from underground wells.
Dolerite sills so distinctive of the Karoo scenery in South Africa.
Grant Cawthorn
Those against shale gas extraction have scored a couple of wins in the north-west of England, but industry-government-researcher collusion may yet win the day.
Philip Lloyd, Cape Peninsula University of Technology
Fracking presents a better alternative to coal mining. Finding a way to produce the gas economically is the first challenge to getting fracking underway.
Mission accomplished? Protesters outside the European parliament in Brussels.
Greensefa
As tensions run high over Russia’s gas supplies to the Ukraine, and by extension parts of Europe, the reality for the EU is less than perfect: it will need Russian gas for the foreseeable future.
Have fracking opponents over-estimated Cameron’s enthusiasm for fracking?
Jeff J Mitchell
David Cameron might have been forced into accepting several restrictions on fracking to avoid a Commons defeat, but one thing that has never appeared in doubt is the Conservative party leadership’s commitment…
Did the Saudis and the Americans do a deal over oil in 2008-09?
solkanar
What on earth is going on in the oil market? Does the recent 60% collapse in oil prices in six months really reflect shifts in underlying supply and demand for crude oil? I’m afraid not, as I have been…