China’s Shale Gas No Revolution as Price Imperils Output: Energy
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China, consuming energy at the fastest pace among major economies, has set ambitious targets to exploit its reservoirs of shale gas, the same fuel the U.S. touts as the means to energy independence. It won’t meet them.
China is producing no commercial quantities of shale gas yet has set a target of 80 billion cubic meters by 2020, or 23 percent of total expected demand. Output in 2020 will likely be 18 billion cubic meters, according to the average estimate of seven analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. That’s more pessimistic than a year ago when the forecast was 23 billion cubic meters.