The United Kingdom is about to receive its first American shale gas.
The Ineos Insight tanker carrying ethane—a feedstock for chemical production—will arrive at Grangemouth, Scotland, today, Richard Longden, a spokesman for petrochemical maker Ineos Group, tells Bloomberg. U.S. liquefied natural gas, used in heating and power generation, has yet to reach northwest European markets.
The tanker carrying 970,000 cubic feet of ethane is the first shipment of gas produced from U.S. shale fields to arrive in Britain, and is part of Ineos’s $2 billion investment to create a virtual pipeline across the Atlantic. The Ineos Insight is one of eight vessels that will deliver the fuel as North Sea supplies dwindle.
The arrival of U.S. shale gas comes as Britain debates its own stance on fracking, a technology already shunned by most nations in mainland Europe. While the Conservative government vowed on Monday to continue supporting shale gas, which would reduce dependency on imports and help meet the U.K.’s needs for 47 years, the practice drew criticism from the opposition Labour Party as well as from the nation’s Green Party.
Increased production of ethane, which is extracted from unprocessed natural gas along with other liquids, has boosted exports from the U.S., first by pipeline to Canada and then by tanker to overseas destinations. Ethane is used as a key feedstock for plastics production and other industrial uses.
U.S. exports of LNG, which is natural gas chilled to a liquid for transportation, started in February from Cheniere Energy Inc.’s Sabine Pass terminal in Louisiana. Most cargoes went to Latin America, the Middle East and India. Two arrived in Europe’s Iberian peninsula, which doesn’t have pipeline access to northwest Europe’s links to supplies from Norway, Russia, the U.K. and the Netherlands.
