Shell planning to invest $1bn in China shale
ROYAL Dutch Shell plans to spend at least $1bn a year exploiting China’s potentially vast resources of shale gas, the firm’s top China executive said yesterday, part of an aggressive strategy to expand in the world’s biggest energy market.
Shell in March secured China’s first product sharing contract for shale gas, hoping that getting in early will allow it to be a big beneficiary from the sort of boom in shale that has transformed the US energy market.
Asked if the firm remained committed to a plan to invest $1bn a year in China’s shale gas over the coming few years, Lim Haw Kuang, Shell’s top China executive, said in an interview: “Yes, yes and yes.”
“If there has been an adjustment to that pledge, it could only be an upward revision,” added Lim, a Malaysian national and a Shell veteran of 34 years.
Shell is also aiming to build a $12.6bn refinery and petrochemical complex in eastern China, a project that could become the single largest foreign investment in China.