Chinese Shale Gas Policies

摘要

As a country that has experienced tremendous economic development in the past decades, China now faces pressure to satisfy its growing energy demand: the country is running low on oil reserves and its move away from reliance on coal is creating additional strain on gas supply. The need to secure long-term energy resources has pushed the Chinese authorities to explore other possibilities, while the current boom in the United States has prompted a closer look at China's prospects of exploiting its vast reserves of shale gas. With this in mind, the Development Plan of Shale Gas (2011-2015) (the "2011-2015 Plan") the was promulgated by the major regulators in the shale gas sector, including China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the State Administration of Energy (SAE), the Ministry of Finance (MOF) and the Ministry of Land and Resources (MLR). The 2011-2015 Plan encourages vigorous development efforts and expects significant growth in the Chinese shale gas industry. It also envisions annual production of shale gas reaching 6.5 trillion cubic meters per year by 2015, with the production scale set at 60-100 billion cubic meters by 2020.