CALGARY — The natural-gas industry is firing back with an information campaign after a Quebec report recommended continuing to block the nascent shale-gas industry there.

In a news release Monday, a coalition of Canadian upstream, pipeline and distribution companies responded to the Bureau d'audiences publiques sur l'environnement (BAPE) report, released last week by the Quebec government.

The report said the government must conduct a strategic environmental evaluation and no hydraulic fracturing — in which a mixture of water, sand and chemicals is injected into underground formations at high pressure — should be allowed while the study is being carried out except for research purposes.

Fracturing is routinely performed to enhance performance in wells in Western Canada.

"We are confident, based on experience in other jurisdictions, that shale gas can be developed safely in Quebec," said Brenda Kenny, president of the Calgary-based Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, in the news release.

"Safe shale-gas development would provide benefits to Quebecers in terms of jobs and public revenues, and provide consumers in Quebec and beyond with a clean-burning reliable energy solution."

Calgary-based companies Talisman Energy and Questerre Energy are among the companies with interests in Quebec shale plays.

Development of the plays has been strongly opposed by residents who fear contamination of groundwater and air pollution from leaking wells.

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, the Canadian Gas Association and CEPA, along with the Canadian Natural Gas Vehicle Alliance and the Canadian Society for Unconventional Gas, comprise the Canadian Natural Gas Initiative.

"The natural gas industry respects the public process in Quebec and will work constructively with the Quebec government to build public understanding of the technology and processes used to explore for and develop natural gas," said CAPP president Dave Collyer.

The alliance pointed out that 6.2 million customers in Canada use natural gas. Half of the country's homes are heated with gas.

"The many benefits of natural gas — and new applications in high-emission industries like transportation — underscore the opportunity its development affords to Quebec to make an even more robust and sustainable energy system for the benefit of Quebecers," said Timothy Egan, president and chief executive of the CGA.

Canada produced 15.2 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas in 2009, making it the third-largest producer in the world.