beyondbrics

China loves shale gas. Just this week a Chinese company spent $2.5bn on US shale oil and gas assets, in part to help meet the country’s voracious appetite for energy. Gas demand is estimated to grow 15 per cent a year.

But a close friend of Beijing’s has joined those criticising the controversial energy source: Fidel Castro.

In a column published in state media, Senor Castro took a pop at the process of ‘fracking’ – a method of extracting shale gas by fracturing rock to release gas. This from Reuters:

“It is sufficient to point out that among the numerous chemical substances injected with the water to extract this gas is found benzene and toluene, which are substances terribly carcinogenic,” he wrote.

The information on shale gas was something “no political cadre or sensible person could ignore,” he said.

In fact, he was so worried about shale that he had “let the festive days of the old and new year pass by” working on his column.

However, despite the Cuban leader’s scientific musings, political cadres in Beijing seem keen. And as we reported last month, shale has the potential to be a huge source of energy for China, the country with the largest technically recoverable shale gas reserves in the world.

But as Leslie Hook reported last month, China shale dreams have yet to get off the ground:

China has no commercial production of shale gas yet – although exploratory wells have been drilled…

“If they can really tap shale gas, it could be a long-term game changer for China’s gas market,” says Soozhana Choi, head of Asia commodities research at Deutsche Bank.

She cautions, however, that it is too soon to tell how the shale-gas fields will be developed.

“There are a lot of questions about how easy it is to extract that shale gas in China. They are still at the early stages of assessing the potential.”

One thing’s for sure, Castro’s words of warnings will fall on deaf ears.

Related reading:
China: Beijing will drive global natural gas demand, FT
PetroChina finds shale gas reserves, FT
Malaysia: Petronas strikes $1.1bn shale gas deal in Canada, beyondbrics
Shale reserves: Gas seen as bridge between old and new forms of power, FT