Pathways to shale gas development in Asia Pacific

摘要

In order to decouple economic growth from carbon dioxide emissions, the 21 membereconomies of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) have agreed to shift away fromthe predominant use of oil and coal by means of an expanded natural gas demand. As sucheffort is contingent on a larger natural gas supply that faces rapid depletion and geographicalconcentration, APEC economies have converged on enhancing the development ofunconventional gas resources that seem to be more abundant domestically, albeit at a highereconomic cost and complexity than conventional gas. Chief among these unconventionalresources is shale gas, but so far it has only been produced commercially in a few economies,with very modest outcomes that question its commercial viability and its role to support anincreased natural gas demand. In consideration of this background, a research project waslaunched to design a policy framework for the commercial production of shale gas that waslater applied to six member economies with inferred shale gas resources looking forward to orhaving already achieved some level of development. The findings stress the importance of shalegas to Asia Pacific’s energy and gas agendas, outline the major components involved in itsdevelopment, and indicate the major barriers to its large-scale production in Australia,Canada, Chile, China, Indonesia and Mexico.