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.

"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."