het adagium luidt "horen, zien en zwijgen"
the Chinese want to join the shale gas revolution, even if it means drilling for oil in China’s earthquake hot bed in the Sichuan region, where nearly 70,000 died in an earthquake in 2008.
Royal Dutch Shell Plc and China National Petroleum have started 'fracking' operations in the province.
China hopes to boost annual shale gas production to 6.5 billion cubic meters by 2015, and reserves are estimated at about 1,115 trillion cubic feet, according to the US Energy Information Administration, higher than the estimated 665 trillion gas reserves on American soil.
Shell plans to invest $1 billion per year in China’s shale gas industry, as part of its goal to increase global output to four million barrels of oil and gas by 2017-2018, up from current levels of 3.3 million.
Drilling for oil in the Longmenshan mountain range, where India and Asia meet, could increase tremors in the already highly-sensitive area.
The hydraulic fracturing, or 'fracking' process of extracting oil from the earth is invasive and is believed by many to be a direct earthquake instigator.
Extraction by 'fracking' involves pumping millions of gallons of water and chemicals into the ground, which creates excess hydro waste, which over time, causes tectonic stress.
“We do detailed structural analysis as a routine part of our pre-drill evaluation,” Shi Jiangtao, a Shell spokesman in Beijing, said in an e-mail to Bloomberg. “This means that we evaluate the geology by using seismic, surface geology, nearby well data, etc.”
There is strong correlative evidence between deep underground wells and nearby earthquakes, both in the US and China.
An investigation by the US Geological Survey found that 'fracking' and quakes aren’t directly related, but noted, “at some locations the increase in seismicity coincides with the injection of wastewater in deep disposal wells.”