The contradictions of the war: the EU will receive more gas from the US as a result of a 'fracking' that Europe rejects

An extraction well in Loving County (Texas), one of the areas in the US where hydraulic invoicing has boosted oil and gas production. Angus Mordant (Reuters)

The United States has promised this Friday to increase its natural gas exports to the EU by 68% so that the bloc can speed up its disconnection from Russia.

Washington helps its partners and, in addition, opens a powerful business vein, consolidating its leadership as the world's leading exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG, in the jargon of the sector).

In parallel, however, some deep contradictions emerge.

The vast majority of that gas that will arrive thanks to the agreement with Joe Biden is the result of the hydraulic fracturing revolution (

, in English), a controversial hydrocarbon extraction technique whose use skyrocketed in the US as of 2010 —and which has allowed it to become the world's leading producer and net exporter of crude oil and gas—, but which has not caught on. the EU and the United Kingdom due to its lower profitability, its high environmental impact and social protests, among other factors.

In addition, the LNG will arrive in Europe in methane tankers, which will imply an increase in greenhouse gas emissions in the process of transport from the American wells to the European regasification plants.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has forced Europe, a net importer of fossil fuels since time immemorial, to seriously rethink its place on the global energy map.

Overnight, Russian gas and crude oil have become highly toxic products, and it is time to look for new suppliers: Qatar, Algeria, Nigeria, Australia and, above all, the United States, a country that in recent years Gas was already imported, but now it takes on another dimension in the community energy matrix.

This turn has also given rise to voices advocating rethinking the veto that exists in most of Europe to this technique, which consists of injecting water, sand and chemical products at high pressure through a well to break the bedrock into which the gas and oil are housed in order to be able to extract them.

Apart from the local environmental impacts and the micro-earthquakes associated with the extraction of shale gas, environmental groups warn that betting on this technique means increasing dependence on fossil energy, the main cause of climate change.

But can we really expect a certain greening of

that were forgotten in the Old Continent?

"The short answer is no.

The initial phase of exploration has only progressed [in the last decade, not now] in the UK and Poland,” recalls Michael Bradshaw, Professor of Global Energy at the University of Warwick.

In part, he says, because of significant public opposition to the projects;

partly due to the lack of government support;

and in part, also, because in some places where the go-ahead was given to continue with the explorations, the results were “disappointing”.

In the British case, of which he is well acquainted, it has not materialized into anything concrete either.

"Shale is not part of the solution, and even if the moratorium were lifted soon, it would not have a material impact in the short term."

In energy, as in so many other areas, the differences between Europe and the United States are profound.

And in the case of hydraulic invoicing, the realities of both blocks are especially different.

First, because of the resource itself: according to the latest count by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), that country has almost twice as many gas reserves of this type as the entire EU put together.

“The shale in Europe is much less conducive: the clay hinders the ability to fracture.

It would take a long time to get to a point where it would make a difference,” says Paul Stevens, of the prestigious British think tank Chatham House.

Second, due to previous knowledge: the US has years of experience with this type of technique, in which economies of scale (where profitability increases by increasing production) are particularly important, while the European bloc would start practically from scratch.

And third, because of social acceptance: even in the United Kingdom, a country that is much more open to this type of process than continental Europe, the popularity of this technique is very low.

"These are very different situations [on both sides of the Atlantic]: most of the conditions that allowed the

revolution in the US simply do not exist in Europe," summarizes Bradshaw.

Alexandre de Robaulx de Beaurieux, a geologist at the Swiss Siper institute, recalls that "the US has managed to produce eight million barrels of

oil with the best technology imaginable and with legal frameworks that are very friendly to the industry."

“Whoever says that this can be achieved in Europe is building castles in the air”, he slips by email.

Robaulx de Beaurieux does not believe, furthermore, that it is an environmental issue that has stopped any drive towards hydraulic fracturing in Europe: “When prices go up, the pendulum changes position and, suddenly, many people are once again interested in he.

But it is as simple as there are no resources.”

However, war through, some governments such as the British do not now close the door to lifting a ban that in the United Kingdom dates from 2019. In Spain ―where the College of Geologists has requested that the use of

be allowed to extract gas, something that environmental groups reject—, the climate change law closed the door to the use of fracking in May 2021. The Ministry for the Ecological Transition insists on the negative: “We do not consider

.

The commitment is to accelerate the energy transition, the deployment of renewables, savings and efficiency, to electrify the economy”, says a spokesperson.

USA: more drilling permits

With the price of oil clearly above 100 dollars for the first time in eight years and natural gas at levels hardly imaginable just a few months ago, hydraulic fracturing shines again in the US, a country that in recent years has come close to something that closely resembles energy sovereignty.

The first methane tanker loaded with shale gas for export set sail from US shores in 2016, and six years later the US giant will end 2022 as the number one gas exporter on the planet.

In his first months in the White House, President Joe Biden advocated stricter regulation of the oil industry, declared a moratorium on drilling on federal land to study environmental impact, and revoked permission to build an oil pipeline, the Keystone XL, which would link the US and Canada.

The fight against climate change is a priority in his policy, but inflation and the war in Ukraine have brought Biden closer to an industry that looks at him with suspicion, feeling demonized.

The data is clear: in his first year, the Democrat has surpassed Trump in granting drilling permits on public lands and waters.

His Administration granted the largest

of the Gulf of Mexico (32 million hectares) last year, although a federal court blocked it for not taking into account the environmental impact.

Three of the biggest shale gas companies in February reported record profits last year, the highest in more than a decade.

The country's largest

are posting huge profits but plan to keep output low this year under a deal with Wall Street.

To encourage them to produce more, Washington has reiterated these days that companies do not face government restrictions on drilling in the short term, although in the long term it continues to encourage them to adopt cleaner forms of energy in response to climate change.

Even before the Russian invasion, the pressure of inflation had caused an increase in extractive activity.

In December, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm called for increasing production and the number of rigs.

Exxon Mobil announced this month that it would increase its investment in new wells, and the

who once thought their industry was dead, are making a big comeback today.

Behind the back of the White House, they are reopening drilling platforms in fields that have been almost abandoned since 2020 due to the low price of oil and low profitability, in Oklahoma and Colorado.

Environmental activists, meanwhile, fear a

of the oil and gas industry, taking advantage of consumer fear and disdain for the emission of greenhouse gases.

The influential

have redoubled their pressure on legislators these weeks, with a bombardment of memorandums that sing the advantages of fossil fuels.

Land ownership is key.

“90% of the production of land deposits is carried out on land that is not owned by the federal government.

Of the remaining 10%, federal land, the oil and gas industry has leased millions of hectares.

Currently, they have 9,000 approved drilling permits.

They could be mining right now,” Biden lamented on March 8, when he banned the import of Russian crude.

“Even in the midst of the pandemic, American companies pumped more oil during my first year in office than during the first year of my predecessor.

We are approaching record levels of oil and gas production, and we are on track to set a production record next year,” said the president,

But true to his green ideology, and making a virtue of necessity, Biden repeats his mantra in the face of the Russian threat: "Being energy independent means reducing our dependence on fossil fuels."

"The only way to eliminate the ability of Putin and all other producing countries to use oil as an economic weapon is to reduce our dependence on oil," he read a White House statement a couple of weeks ago.

The United Kingdom: moratorium from 2019

Boris Johnson's government has promised a comprehensive review of its energy policy in response to the supply crisis unleashed by the invasion of Ukraine.

is being reopened

.

"The energy strategy must consider all options, given the current situation in Ukraine and the way it is affecting the price of gas and oil," admitted a Downing Street spokesman.

Pressured in his first general election as a candidate by the Labor opposition, which promised to put a definitive end to this technique, the Conservative Johnson unexpectedly announced an indefinite moratorium.

Over the previous decade, the technique had become the hope of

governments to give the UK greater energy autonomy.

This despite the fact that the movements of the local population against the projects had gained a lot of strength.

Just after the invasion of Ukraine, and the British government being the first to support Washington's decision to veto Russian oil, a group of about forty Conservative MPs sent a letter to Johnson asking that the moratorium be reconsidered. of

to “pause and review the measure”, in order to “reinforce the country's energy security at a time of such geopolitical tension”, said the parliamentarians.

There are now only two shale oil extraction sites left in the UK, both in the county of Lancashire.

The country's energy regulatory authority, the OGA, had already given the order that they be plugged with a layer of cement.

The Minister of Energy, Kwasi Kwarteng, who through a public tribune in the media and networks had expressed his opinion that it did not make sense to return to

, because it would take time and would not help reduce energy costs, then had to go ahead back in the House of Commons: “After speaking with my honorable friend, the Prime Minister, we both came to the conclusion that there was no point in rushing to seal the wells with cement.

We are still discussing the matter."

Poster against 'fracking' in Quintanilla-Sobresierra (Burgos).

GORKA LEJARCEGI

Spain: local opposition

In Spain, the

bubble burst in 2017, when the five companies that wanted to use this technique and promised to break the national dependence on foreign fuels thanks to shale gas gave up their projects.

It was due to a mixture of local opposition and falling gas prices, recalls Samuel Martín-Sosa, an environmental activist and head of the Ecologistas en Acción campaign against gas.

“It was a local fight, against the environmental impacts of

”, explains Martín-Sosa, who is now in the organization Climate Action Network.

“That movement fizzled out,” he recalls.

Because it was not against fossil fuels in general, which Spain has continued and continues to consume, but against the specific impact of this technique on the territory.

The PP government tried to promote the use of

changed state regulations and opened the door for it.

But while in Madrid, in the Congress of Deputies, that party managed to maintain the voting discipline for the legislative changes that were approved to authorize its use, in several communities —such as Cantabria and the Basque Country— the popular parliamentarians supported the anti-

laws

regional.

This rejection also reached the mayors: in Burgos, for example, the five municipalities —all from the PP— affected by the project of the Canadian company BNK were opposed to hydraulic fracturing.

This generated a feeling of legal insecurity among companies.

The last straw came with the approval in May of last year of the climate change law, which definitively closes the door to this technique.

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