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UK’s first shale gas well will soon be ready for operation. The shale gas well is a new way of extracting shale gas, a natural gas taken from a sedimentary rock formed by the deposition of successive layers of clay, and could profoundly change the energy market.

The site of the gas well is in a former wheat field a few miles from Blackpool in Lancashire, and it is hoped that drilling will begin in days.

Cuadrilla Resources, the company behind the project, hopes that within a few years shale gas from Lancashire and other parts of Britain could contribute between five to ten per cent of the country’s gas needs. The gas they’re targeting is trapped in 10,000 feet below the surface in rocks called Bowland shale, which runs from Pendle Hill near Preston to the Irish Sea.

“Several wells were drilled here by British Gas in the early eighties. They penetrated through the Bowland shale and the old indications were that there was gas in that shale. So we decided that this area would be prospective, and after about a year’s worth of work we decided that this was the place to start,” said Chris Cornelius, co-founder of Cuadrilla Resources.

It is the beginning of a long process, and it could take years before any of the gas they find is being used in Britain. But the technology being used has already changed the dynamics of America’s gas market, taking the country from growing reliance on imports to a position of near self sufficiency.