igasplc.com
The company explores and develops gas and oil reserves at onshore locations in the northwest of England, in north Wales, in the East Midlands and in southern England.
With almost a decade of experience in onshore drilling, IGas is able to exploit prolific and lower-cost hydrocarbon reserves which contribute to Britain’s energy security while at the same time delivering value to IGas investors.
Fracking report sparks investor interest in UK shale
Interest in Britain’s shale gas prospects was lifted today as a government appointed panel gave the green light for hydraulic ‘fracking’ to resume in Northern England.
On AIM, the spotlight focused on IGas Energy (LON:IGAS) and Europa Oil & Gas (LON:EOG), both of which have onshore acreage in Britain with shale potential.
Last year, privately owned Cuadrilla Resources made a huge shale discovery near Blackpool. It is reported that the gas resource would be sufficient to supply the UK for 56 years.
However, the group’s drilling programme was put on hold after the hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, process caused a number of small tremors – measuring 2.3 and 1.5 in magnitude.
Today a panel of experts concluded that there was no reason why Cuadrilla could not resume fracking operations under tighter regulatory conditions and monitoring.
A six week public consultation will now follow, before the Department of Energy and Climate Change finalises its new set of rules for fracking in the UK.
As Cuadrilla is privately owned and therefore not listed on a public exchange it is hard to judge precisely the weight of today’s developments for Britain’s shale future.
However on AIM, IGas shares gained as much as 8 per cent at one point, while Europa gained up to 16 per cent.
IGas’s primary business is coal-bed methane, another type of unconventional gas found in coal seams. But, in January a CBM well in Cheshire hit what IGas described as a ‘very significant’ amount of shale gas.
Ince Marshes is only a few miles away from Cuadrilla’s operations.
It is now thought that the Ince Marshes discovery could be twice as big as the original pre-drill 4.6 trillion cubic feet estimate.
Earlier this month, IGas told investors that logs indicate more than 10tcf of gas in place at the Ince Marshes field.
“We drilled the well at Ince Marshes primarily as a CBM well but we ended logging and coring the shale and the results are way better than we expected,” IGas managing director Andrew Austin said.
“It was a bolt from the blue,” he adds. “We knew we had shale there but didn’t realise quite how prospective it could be.”
The firm is now undertaking a formal process to find a partner for the shale project after it received a number of approaches over possible farm-ins.
Meanwhile, Europa was the other AIM quoted firm to be lifted today. The group has more than 600 square kilometres of prospective shale gas acreage in the Humber basin, near its conventional oil production operation.
It believes this area has potential for significant shale gas resources. And while this acreage is being evaluated Europa says it plans to monitor the other shale gas exploration activities with interest.
At 15:00 IGas shares were up 2p, or 4 per cent, trading at 54p each meanwhile Europa share were up 1p, or 12 per cent, at 9.25p.
