Need for Shale Gas and its Challenges

About Shale Gas

  • Unlike conventional hydrocarbons that can be sponged out of permeable rocks easily, shale gas is trapped under low permeable rocks.
  • Therefore, a mixture of ‘pressurised water, chemicals, and sand’ (shale fluid) is required to break low permeable rocks in order to unlock the shale gas reserves.
  • The process requires around 5 to 9 million litres of water per extraction activity, posing a daunting challenge to India’s fresh water resources.
  • Many scholars believe that fossil fuel energy will decline markedly by 2050. Such conclusions have been challenged by others who say that the earth has enough resources to quench humankind’s thirst for development for many centuries to come.
  • Among other energy supplies, shale gas and oil are likely to be abundant and available.

World distribution of Shale gas

  • The world’s recoverable shale reserves are found in following regions.
  • In total, the report assessed 48 shale gas basins in 32 countries, containing almost 70 shale gas formations.
  • These assessments cover the most prospective shale gas resources in a select group of countries that demonstrate some level of relatively near-term promise and for basins that have a sufficient amount of geologic data for resource analysis.
  • Red colour areas represent the location of assessed shale gas basins for which estimates of the ‘risked’ gas-in-place and technically recoverable resources were provided.
  • Yellow colour area represents the location of shale gas basins that were reviewed, but for which estimates were not provided, mainly due to the lack of data necessary to conduct the assessment.
  • White colour countries are those for which at least one shale gas basin was considered for this report.
  • Grey colour countries are those for which no shale gas basins were considered for this report.

Shale distribution in India

  • India has identified six basins as areas for shale gas exploration: Cambay (Gujarat), Assam-Arakan (North East), Gondwana (Central India), Krishna Godavari onshore (East Coast), Cauvery onshore, and Indo-Gangetic basins.
  • Recently government adopted a policy framework for exploration and exploitation of unconventional hydrocarbons, a change that would allow private companies to exploit unconventional hydrocarbons including shale gas and Coal Bed Methane (CBM) from their existing blocks.
  • Central government had incorporated Coal Bed Methane and shale gas under the new HELP.

Shale Gas and Oil

  • Shale gas and oil are unconventional natural resources. They are found at 2,500-5,000 metres below the earth’s surface.
  • They are deeper in comparison to conventional crude oil found at 1,500 metres.
  • The process of extracting shale oil and gas requires deep vertical drilling followed by horizontal drilling.
  • The most common way to extract shale gas is ‘hydraulic fracturing’ (fracking), this is nothing but sending high volumes of water mixed with certain chemicals to break the rocks and release the trapped energy minerals.

Hydraulic Fracturing: Most Common way to extract Shale Gas:


  • Hydraulic well fracturing (“fracking”) is the process of pumping fluid into a wellbore to create enough pressure to crack or fracture the rock layer.
  • Fractures are created by pumping large quantities of fluids at high pressure down a bore well and into the target rock formation.
  • The fluid usually contains a “proppant,” like sand, that helps keep the fractures open to allow oil and gas to be produced to the well.

Location: Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India

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