Massive Natural Gas Discoveries in Northern Spain

Massive natural gas discoveries in northern Spain are reportedly sufficient to supply the country's requirements for five years.

Spain's Basque regional premier Patxi Lopez says that surveys in Alava province have identified 13 unconventional gas holdings totaling 180 billion cubic meters in Gran Enara, which could supply the Basque region for six decades, or the entire nation for five years.

The natural gas deposits are located in shale rock deposits, which would require hydraulic fracturing to release them, a contentious technique which has encountered growing resistance in the United States, where the method was first utilized, as well as in other countries.

Despite such environmental concerns, Remier Lopez told the media that the Basque regional government will invest $55 million in the project while U.S. companies Heyco Energy and Cambria Europe will jointly invest $82.4 million, Madrid's El Pais newspaper reported. According to Lopez, Basque government studies have found a total of roughly 185 billion cubic meters of shale gas in 13 wells in the Gran Enara field in northern Spain's Basque Alava region.

According to preliminary reports, two wells are to be drilled initially in the Gran Enara field to see if natural gas extraction is technically feasible and economically viable.

(Charles Kennedy is Deputy Editor of OilPrice.com. The original article appears here.)