China Daily reported that China will launch its second shale gas exploration tender on October 25 in Beijing, as the country accelerates the search for its potential vast reserves of the energy resource.
According to the tender announcement released on the website of the Ministry of Land and Resources “The tender will offer 20 blocks, about 20,002 square kilometers, to Chinese energy companies or Sino foreign ventures with Chinese companies taking the majority stake.”
A successful bidder can get 3 year exploration rights to one block for shale gas resources
The blocks in the tender cover seven provinces and one municipality, mostly in Guizhou, Chongqing, Hunan and Hubei.
Shale gas is natural gas formed within shale formations. It has become an important source of energy in recent years. As shale gas transforms the global energy outlook, China is accelerating its pace in figuring out how to explore its huge reserves of the unconventional resource. China plans to pump 6.5 billion cubic meters of shale gas by 2015, according to the country's 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-15) on shale gas exploration.
Source: 321energy.