An article of a leading IEF specialist Nikolai Ivanov on the prospects for shale gas production were published in Novaya Gazeta on October 7.
Oil, a source of wealth for the Russian economy, is getting cheaper and gradually tending to the level of $ 100 per barrel. It is this forecast price that is included in the budget projections of the Ministry of Finance for 2012. At the same time, the budget can be balanced at oil price of $ 116.2 per barrel. Accordingly, in the next three years, unlike in 2011, we will face a deficit budget. The price of gas, the second source of wealth, is tied to the price of oil. Perhaps it will also decline. And this is a conservative scenario. But there are also landslide scenarios: cheaper technologies for the extraction of shale gas and shale oil can radically change the situation and, having removed Russia from the hydrocarbon needle due to the lack of demand for its energy resources, lead to an economic collapse.
How realistic is this scenario? Is shale mining demonized? To begin with, we decided to understand the problem that everyone is talking about, but almost no one understands what, in fact, we are talking about — the alternative that shale gas creates for traditional mining.
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