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Oilfield service groups target Europe for coming shale boom

Oilfield service groups target Europe for coming shale boom

Chiswick Park in southwest London does not look like a hub of the global oil and gas industry. But that’s what this elegant business park, with its water features, landscaped gardens and coffee bars has become. It is now home to the UK’s biggest concentration of oilfield service companies outside of Aberdeen. SeadrillAker SolutionsHalliburton and Baker Hughes have all made their home here. The latter two are expanding in Europe in the hope of riding the continent’s coming shale boom. They hope to apply the same technology that opened the shale fields of North America to Europe’s untapped shale reserves, sparking a similar-sized gas bonanza.

Europe is itself home to a number of companies that have participated in the shale boom, such as Weir Group, a leading supplier of pumps used by US fracking fleets, and Amec, which has carried out design and engineering work for companies operating in the Utica and Marcellus shales.

“But when you think of the services you need for shale development – manufacturing, logistics, supply chain and services at the drill bit – they just aren’t in place on any great scale in Europe,” says Christyan Malek, an analyst at Nomura.

According to PacWest Consulting Partners, Europe has only 300,000 of hydraulic horsepower available for fracking, compared with 18.5m HHP in North America.

Some say that is not a big obstacle. “If the political will and public acceptance is there, the oilfield services companies could build up capacity very quickly,” says Mike Smith, operations director at Aker Solutions.

But it is still unclear as to whether the political will exists. Some countries, such as France and Bulgaria, have outlawed fracking altogether. And even in places where the authorities back shale gas exploration, such as the UK, fracking companies such as Cuadrilla have faced angry protests that have forced them to suspend operations.

Fonte: ft.com

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