CBM: A Clean Energy Option for India to address Climate Change Issue (original) (raw)

China's Unconventional Gas Ambitions

China has very large resources of unconventional gas in the form of coal-bed methane (CBM) and shale gas. With national demand for gas rising rapidly, the government is making great efforts to craft policies to accelerate the exploitation of these resources. Chinese and foreign companies have been exploring for CBM and coal-mine methane (CMM) for 20 years, but production of CBM and CMM together reached just 14 billion cubic meters (bcm) in 2012. The exploitation of this resource has been constrained by a combination of technological and policy challenges. The production target for 2015 is 30 bcm. China may possess the world’s largest shale gas resource, but exploration dates back to just 2010. Despite the scale of this resource, the geological and geographic conditions are generally less favorable than those for shale gas in the USA. Further, the policies, regulations and licensing procedures are still at an early stage of development. In 2012, the government set production targets for shale gas of 6.5 bcm by 2015 and 60-100 bcm by 2020, but these appear to be overambitious. Despite these constraints it is certain that CBM, CMM and shale gas will steadily contribute to a larger share of China’s gas supply mix and will support the continuing growing domestic gas production and consumption. However, it is uncertain to what extent this rising production of natural gas will constrain China’s growing demand for gas imports.