French Lean Toward Ban of a Controversial Gas Extraction Technique – NYTimes.com

French Lean Toward Ban of a Controversial Gas Extraction Technique – NYTimes.com.

French Lean Toward Ban of a Controversial Gas Extraction Technique

By DAVID JOLLY

Published: May 10, 2011

A blog about energy and the environment.

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Looking with alarm at the experience in the United States, where shale gas is booming, even members of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s governing conservative party have come out against the practice, known as hydraulic fracturing, in which water, sand and chemicals are pumped deep underground under high pressure to free scattered pockets of oil and gas from dense rock formations.

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, “is not something we want to use in France,” Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, the environment minister, said on RMC Radio.

“Shale gas is the same as any other gas,” said Ms. Kosciusko-Morizet, who in February announced a halt in all exploration, pending the results of a study. “What poses a problem is the technology used. Today there aren’t 30 technologies, there’s only one for extracting shale gas — hydraulic fracturing.”

Even without the final study, which is expected in June, deputies in the National Assembly are expected to pass a ban on Wednesday. The legislation will then be sent to the Senate.

Proponents of so-called unconventional gas and oil argue that exploiting European shale deposits would reduce the Continent’s dependence on imports. Shale-based fuels have only begun to appear on the regional energy agenda but may become increasingly visible in the second half of 2011, when Poland assumes the rotating presidency of the European Union. The Poles, leery of their reliance on Russia for their gas, have embraced the search for shale gas.

Fracking has been employed in the United States since the 1990s to tap beds of shale that energy producers had previously considered almost useless. Production from those wells now contributes nearly a quarter of the United States gas supply, driving down prices for consumers. But criticism of the practice has been growing even as it spreads.

A critical documentary on the practice, “Gasland,” was nominated this year for an Oscar, and a spill in Pennsylvania by Chesapeake Energy that polluted a waterway with fracking chemicals seemed to confirm some people’s worst fears.

A ban would affect companies, including Hess Oil France, which has teamed up with the French unit of Toreador Resources to explore in the Paris area; Vermilion Energy, a Canadian company; Schuepbach Energy, a Texas company that is allied with Gaz de France; and Total, the largest French oil company.

Europe is at least a decade behind the United States in exploring its shale resources, and no one is even certain how much oil and gas there is, much less how much can be recovered profitably.

“Our position hasn’t changed,” Total said in a statement. “We think it would be wrong for the country to close the dossier on shale gas without even knowing if there is any.”

Hess Oil France, which has a license for exploring for oil in the Paris basin, had been only about two days from beginning test-drilling in February when the government announced the halt, Mark R. Katrosh, the chief executive, said in an interview.

Mr. Katrosh, who noted that low levels of oil production had been taking place for decades in the Paris region, cited estimates that France held as many as 100 billion barrels of shale oil, of which perhaps 10 billion were recoverable.

Regarding the potential size of the resource, Mr. Katrosh said, “we’re all talking hypothetically right now. The country needs to debate and decide whether they see value in understanding what the potential resource is, and if they do, we’re one of the companies that’s willing to make the investment to better understand this and demonstrate that we can operate safely and respectfully of the environment.”

Industry officials remain optimistic that with public education and political will, economic logic will eventually carry the day. They acknowledge that Europe needs to modernize its regulatory system to adapt to the technology, and they say they expect to have to adapt to much stricter regulation than is the norm in the United States.

For the several hundred fracking opponents outside the National Assembly on Tuesday morning, no compromise is possible.

“For now, we oppose all drilling,” said Liliane Devillers, president of Collectif Carmen, an organization that she said was an umbrella group representing 16 “mostly apolitical” environmental associations from the Picardie region northeast of Paris.

“No one has shown us that it can be done safely, and all the information we have suggests there is a big risk for the groundwater from toxic chemicals.”