Local govts may get shale gas licensing mandate soon

Local governments in China may be allowed to issue shale gas exploration licenses during the long-delayed third round of bidding, industry sources said on Thursday.

The measures will help increase private participation in the shale gas block bidding process and production of shale gas in China, said Wang Ruiqi, an analyst with the Shanghai-based energy consultancy ICIS-C1 Energy.

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"The first two rounds of shale gas block bidding didn't achieve great success because most of the good resources were acquired by China National Petroleum Corp and China Petrochemical Corp (Sinopec Group)," Wang said. "Companies which won the bids for some other blocks have not done much exploration because of technology and capital constraints."

CNPC and Sinopec have dominated most of the bids for oil and gas block developments in the country for a long time.

Though the actual bidding process is still some time away, some local governments have already sought permission from the higher authorities to issue exploration licenses to companies for shale gas blocks in their respective regions.

Central China's Hunan province has already submitted a plan to the Ministry of Land and Resources for issuing exploration licenses for five shale gas blocks - Changde, Shimen, Lianyuan, Zhangjiajie and Cili. It is expected that the Hunan government will issue the exploration rights for the blocks within the year after it gets approval from the ministry.

The information office of the ministry, however, did not confirm the news on the new licensing policy.

China held two rounds of shale gas block bidding in 2011 and 2012. Only State-owned companies were allowed to participate in the first while the government allowed private companies to bid in the second round.

Wang Xiaokun, an analyst at domestic commodities consultancy Sublime China Information Co, said private companies were not very enthusiastic about the second round bidding since the blocks offered for bidding were not the ones with good potential even though they were keen on participation.