The company believes that there may be up to 170 trillion cubic feet of gas in the areas it is licensed to explore in northern England alone.
IGas is one of the companies granted a licence by UK authorities to explore parts of the country believed to contain large resources of shale gas. The company's licences cover an area of 300 square miles across Cheshire.
"The licences have a very significant shale gas resource with the potential to transform the company and materially benefit the communities in which we operate," said IGas chief executive Andrew Austin. "Our estimates for our area alone could mean that the UK would not have to import gas for a period of ten to 15 years.”
Energy firm Cuadrilla, which has drilled wells near Blackpool in Lancashire, says it has 200 trillion cubic feet of gas in its licence area of the Bowland Shale. That suggests the overall number for the region could be in excess of 400-500 trillion cubic feet in total.
"It's not unreasonable to assume that there could be as much as 500 trillion cubic feet in the Bowland shale across the North West," Mr Austin added. "Even if the industry can only extract a fraction of that, combined with North Sea reserves, it could make the UK self-sufficient in gas for decades to come."
Fracking has revolutionised the US energy market and the energy industry has hopes for a similar transformation in the UK.
