In the news

I assume the horizontal pipes are way cheaper than the vertical ones.

What hoops did you need to jump through for the funding?

horizontal cheaper by far and we are lucky we have the space for them and space elsewhere for ground installed solar panels.

funding is being applied for by the installers, no real bother apart from the scheme finishes next year so the installers are super busy right now.

Sorry to hear that

So you didn't buy that windmill place then ?

It's ok, i have been returning to London to teach 1 or 2 week blocks of City and Guilds for 2 years, it's about time I found work nearer to home. Can teach cycling, yoga and first aid but just need to pull my finger out. However my wife has just landed another big consultancy project. She earns grown up money, I earn pocket money and if both of us are working we need to pay for dog care, which makes it almost pointless for me to work. Plus right now we are in the middle of a large extension project and it makes more sense for me to be on site dealing with stuff here and looking after the hounds.

So it's not a bad situation, and it'll be good to find more work closer to home. It's just a huge shame that Cycle Training UK are folding as I have really enjoyed being with them and they really supported me getting out of a rut and developing new skills.

saw a great small device for water generation I was thinking why here in HK they don't use more of that as so much water power in the rainy season runs off the big hills

I'll rephrase that, got a bit over excited, in my opinion the folk that will benefit the most are the folk who own, drill and frack

Heh, yeah, that makes more sense :)

The problem with fracking if you live there is that IF something does go wrong, the companies may not be held to account. It's been seen with mining, water pollution, soil pollution, case of walking off and the tax payer/locals pay the price.

Maybe if the government would force them into a huge liability insurance policy with ringfenced money (none of this the company went bankrupt/changed ownership) it would help inspire some confidence?

ONS report from 2015 shows we don't heavily rely on Russia for hydro carbons and not at all for gas

I write about the energy markets for a living, you know.
a) 2015 is not 2018
b) we're talking about the future, anyway. There is very little incremental supply left in the North Sea - the Norwegians aren't expecting any significant gas capacity additions after Polarled comes on stream. So in the future we're going to have to rely increasingly on imports from further afield. Those are a) Russia and b) LNG. Where it will come from depends mostly on the relative price of supply.
c) Yes, they don't know how much shale potential there is until they actually try to produce some. You need to drill to understand the geology.
d) That study seems to focus on the highest end of the cost range rather than the lower end.

We just need to go back to getting gas from coal, problem solved.

Fracking is an environmental disaster.

Not if. Not maybe. Is.

Look at its history in the US and you will see that companies have no problems extracting for profit, but lots of problems paying to decontaminate the vast amounts of poisoned water created in the process, and at this point mysterious spillages into rivers happen that are impossible to clean up and kill everything downstream.

If you can't do it without contaminating your own water supplies, don't do it.

I write about the energy markets for a living, you know.

I didn't know, I work in the industry in Aberdeen, spent some years as a field engineer doing Open Hole Wireline onshore and offshore, actually did some CST on a Cuadrilla site in North West England in 2011 I think, not that that qualifies me or anything, but what i will say is, British drillers are/were bloody slow, the ones I saw anyway!
Currently a Mechanical engineer, office based, still massive in O&G :)

a) 2015 is not 2018

Noted but can't find anything more recent, apparently we have started importing LNG from Russia or did so earlier in the year.

b) we're talking about the future, anyway. There is very little incremental supply left in the North Sea - the Norwegians aren't expecting any significant gas capacity additions after Polarled comes on stream. So in the future we're going to have to rely increasingly on imports from further afield. Those are a) Russia and b) LNG. Where it will come from depends mostly on the relative price of supply.

Very true, there has been very little exploration of late in the north sea so that hasn't helped, a few bits and bobs popping up now but certainly all the easy stuff is gone!

c) Yes, they don't know how much shale potential there is until they actually try to produce some. You need to drill to understand the geology.

Yup, they can however state proven, possible and probable reserves, from there they can determine whether it is worthwhile going in further, they obviously think it is.

d) That study seems to focus on the highest end of the cost range rather than the lower end.

Ok, I suppose this is a tricky thing to answer as we are missing a lot of variables. We don't have the proven reserves, we don't know how much can be economically recovered, how efficiently and quickly the wells can be learnt to optimise production, the effect of environmental policy on costs, such as the cost of treating the fracking water. What will help profitability and viability will be fiscal incentives from government, possibly learning lessons from the US shale industry to streamline UK companies efforts, technology and methods will continue to improve to make unconventional hydrocarbon recovery a better prospect. From what I have read, I don't really think that Shale is terribly viable without policy change and help from gov and an up-scaling of the services industry in the UK.

For completeness, just read this prior to replying and is an interesting take on the viability of shale.

https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/public/Research/Energy%2C%20Environment%20and%20Development/131213shalegas.pdf

I remember reading that in 2013 - I agree with the conclusions. The interconnectedness of the European gas market means that you just won't get a significant long-term price differential between the UK and the continent any more (Brexit chaos notwithstanding!).

There are a lot of questions about shale, I agree. I would just like to understand a little better from the test wells whether any of these issues can be addressed, and I don't think the public debate will move on meaningfully without some test drilling. If the test drilling shows it's not worth the effort, then we should definitely scrap it.

Interesting to read your take on it, I see the projects coming in (or not, a lot of proposals up in the air, despite the price of Oil) and read OilPrice.com.

Agree with everything you say there, although personally I would like it if it was just chapped on the head.

I understand that sometimes people have to suck it up and have a housing estate or a windmill they don't like near them, what I don't think should happen is they are burdened with the possibility of a completely fucked local environment and poisoned water. Yeah, maybe that won't happen, but maybe it will, so it shouldn't happen at all.

I know that oil is dollar denominated - does that hold for other fuels?

When £1 gets you $0.90 next year that's going to sting a little - I imagine having a local source of fuel might be useful at that stage.

Internationally traded commodities are generally in dollars, yeah. So gas trade in the UK is in p/th and in Europe is in €/MWh, but LNG imports from Qatar are in $/mmbtu

Good news
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-45888172
Three jailed fracking protesters freed on appeal

I think the initial judge thought he was above the law considering his family interests in the drilling company.

Thank goodness for that. Existing ruling was a joke.

Yeah, waiting for the news about what's going to be done about his flagrantly corrupt decision-making. Accept that we'll be waiting a while.

Accept that we'll be waiting a while

Before it's kicked into the long grass? Nah, that'll happen almost immediately.

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/43e8yp/the-uns-devastating-climate-change-report-was-too-optimistic

Revelations about the death of the Saudi journo are truly horrifying.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/17/jamal-khashoggi-pompeo-to-meet-erdogan-as-gory-reports-of-killing-emerge

Also, rather predictably, disgraced former Defence Secrerary Liam Fox is still going to Riyadh for a summit on Tuesday while others are pulling out.