From the implementation of the first two rounds of shale gas blocks invitation for bids in China, breakthroughs were made in several local areas but the overall situation is not optimistic. Under the New Normal of Chinese economy, how to vitalize such unconventional hydrocarbon resources as shale gas has become the focus of the government's new round of oil & gas regulation reform. The United Kingdom with hundreds of years of experiences in regulating the onshore oil and gas industry is worth learning and using for reference in China. In view of this, the following features of the UK's strong oil and gas regulatory regime were analyzed, especially its positive reform measures adopted for promoting shale gas exploration and development. First, the UK government has enacted a perfect legal system and a complete set of laws and regulations, established specialized oil and gas regulatory agencies, and owned a mature mineral-rights permission system with normative access and exit mechanism, laying emphasis on government review and approval efficiency. Second, at the earlier stage, more policies were made to attract or support those small-scale or start-up companies or those firms with relatively insufficient capital. Third, the UK government attaches great importance to the sustainable development as well as environmental protection issues in the whole process of oil and gas exploration, exploitation and production. Finally, based on the present status and the existing problems in shale gas exploration and development in China, the following proposals were put forward: to deepen the oil & gas regulation reform, to improve the mineral-rights access and exit mechanism, to make financial incentive policies, to strengthen policy support, and so on. © 2016, Natural Gas Industry Journal Agency. All right reserved.
