MINSK, 1 February (BelTA) – It is too early to talk about the extraction of shale gas and shale oil in Belarus, BelTA learned from Sergei Mamchik, Head of the Geology Office of the Belarusian Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Ministry, on 1 February.
According to the source, due to falling oil prices projects to extract shale gas have been slowed down in many countries because such operations require considerable investments.
Belarusian geologists have carried out projects to find shale gas and shale oil, however, their extraction has been deemed inadvisable. “These projects are on a backburner in Belarus. It is too early to talk about extracting shale gas in Belarus any time soon,” stressed Sergei Mamchik. Yet it is possible that such projects will become economically justified once the relevant technologies are available in a distant future.
Shale gas is expected to dominate power generation in many countries in the future. Although shale gas is usually hard to extract, it represents a good alternative to conventional sources of energy. The USA is the top extractor of shale gas.
As far as shale oil is concerned, no major surveying projects have been carried out in Belarus, although attempts are made regularly, including lab experiments. Piotr Povzhik, Acting Deputy Director General of Belorusneft, explained that serious investments are required for studying such deposits. “We need science-intensive technologies and expensive wells in order to possibly achieve oil influx,” he said.
