ABSTRACT
China is believed to have the world’s largest exploitable reserves of shale gas, however, several legal, regulatory, environmental, and investment-related hurdles will likely restrain its exploitation. China’s capacity to face these hurdles successfully and produce commercial shale gas will have a crucial impact on the regional gas market and on China’s energy
* Earlier drafts of this chapter were circulated in September 2013 as a gLAWcal Working Paper and in December 2013 as a FEEM Working Paper and presented at Colloquium on Environmental Scholarship 2013, Vermont Law School (USA), at the faculty workshops held at University of Amsterdam Law School 2013 (Netherlands), at West Virginia University, Eberly College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Public Administration and College of Law (USA), at the Ninth Annual General Conference of the European China Law Studies Association (ECLS), “Making, Enforcing and Accessing the Law” held at Chinese University of Hong Kong, Faculty of Law, Hong Kong, November 15-16, 2014, at the International Conference “Managing the Globalization of Sanitation and Water Services: ‘Blue Gold’ Regulatory and Economic Challenges”, organized by The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Faculty of Law, in cooperation with Maastricht University, Faculty of Law, University of Sydney, School of Economics, University of Leeds, Business School, British Institute of International and Comparative Law held at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), Faculty of Law, Hong Kong, March 23-24, 2015, at the faculty workshops and lectures at Chinese University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law, Hong Kong, March 25, 2015, at University of Macau, Faculty of Law, and at Fundação Rui Cunha in Macao, March 25-26, 2015. A special thanks should be addressed to the participants in the abovementioned events as well as Nicholas Ashford (MIT), Sachin Desai, Fernando Dias Simões (University of Macau, Faculty of Law), Sam Kalen (University of Wyoming College of Law), Rebecca Purdom (Vermont Law School), Siu Tip Lam (Vermont Law School), Sharon Jacobs (University of Colorado Law School and Harvard Law School), Andreas Kotsakis (Oxford Brookes University Law School), Melissa Scanlan (Vermont Law School), Brad Mank (University of Cincinnati Law School), Julien Chaisse (Chinese University of Hong Kong), Bryan Mercurio (Chinese University of Hong Kong), Anatole Boute (Chinese University of Hong Kong), Yuhong Zhao (Chinese University of Hong Kong), and Laurence Boisson de Chazournes (University of Geneva), David Zaring (University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School), Weitong Zheng (University of Florida, Levin College of Law), and Pamela Bookman (Temple University Beasley School of Law) for their questions and comments.
