Despite the fact that the country's gas requirement is expected to reach 473 mmscmd from 2012-13 to 473 mmscmd in 2016-17 and several gas-fired power plants are in dire need of the natural resource, the much awaited shale gas policy - which would expedite the requirement of the unconventional fuel across the nation - may not see the light of the day any time soon owing to doubts been raised within the Government on the possible environmental impact of shale gas exploration.
Concern mainly has been raised on how India, which has land and water in scarcity, would be able to able tap shale gas, as the technology required for it demands massive requirement of both the natural resources.
According to sources close to the development, the Cabinet note prepared by the Petroleum Ministry on the shale gas policy, despite long been finalised, is lying with the Petroleum Minister M Veerappa Moily, as apparently questions have arisen within the Union Cabinet on the overall impact of the process of exploration of shale deposits may have on the environment.
Though Petroleum Ministry officials claim that all the stakeholders have okayed the cabinet note circulated by them on getting the shale gas policy cleared and it is now with Moily, doubts have arisen on the feasilibility of the exercise as shale blocks development require large mass of land and water and therefore the resultant impact this could have on the environment needs to be assessed.
Resultantly the ministry has been asked to redraft the policy before it can be sent for Cabinet's approval, sources said.
Sources in the know said that though shale gas is a cost effective form of energy, its exploration from the reserves where it is deposited could have an impact on the environment and this needs to be properly assessed before going ahead with the policy.
The policy, once cleared, would allow domestic developers - both public as well as private - would be able to exploit shale gas reserves situated across the country.
The Petroleum Ministry is said to have been asked by the Cabinet Secretariat to analyse the environmental aspect of the exercise and also impact of the technologies which would be put to use for doing so. Globally, sources said, the fracking technology which is used for extracting shale gas from its basins has come in for a lot of criticism.
The process of using water for breaking up the rock where the shale gas is trapped is known as 'hydro-fracturing' or 'fracking'and for this a large number of wells are to be drilled quite deep within the earth. This, experts have said, requires excess requirement of land and water, which in the long run could have an impact on the environment.
Therefore while on one hand India requires shale gas for meeting its energy needs, at the same time the technology required for extracting it has now come in for scrutiny, thus pushing the chances of implementation of the shale gas policy further ahead.
Though the Petroleum Ministry has been keen on having a shale gas policy and several state-owned as well as private entities like ONGC and Reliance Industries ltd have even gone ahead and collaborated with various foreign companies on equity participation in shale deposits situated overseas, the newfound concerns raised on the environment-related aspect of it, may cloud out all the enthusiasm.
According to the Petroleum Ministry, there are at present six basins which have potential shale gas reserves, namely - Cambay, Assam-Arakan, Gondwana, Krishna-Godavari, Kaveri and the Indo-Gangetic plain.The combined capacity of these reserves is estimated to be around 96 trillion cubic feet (tcf).