A Breitling Energy ad supporting fracking has been banned for making unsubstantiated claims about a “near catastrophic” gas shortage in the UK last winter and the potential for lower bills for millions of consumers.
The ad in the Daily Telegraph began: “Dear Citizens of the United Kingdom, do you know that your country is blessed with an incredible gift?” before saying that the British Geological Survey had recently released new and considerably higher shale gas estimates.
The ad went on: “This is fantastic news for the UK – especially in the wake of a near-catastrophic gas shortage last winter, and as resources in the North Sea are on the decline.
“This means…lowering energy prices for millions (and) reducing greenhouse gas emissions by replacing coal with natural gas for energy.”
A reader complained that the ad was misleading and could not be substantiated, arguing that the gas shortage claim exaggerated the severity of the situation and domestic extraction would have minimal impact on energy prices because the UK was part of an integrated European market.
The complainant also said the greenhouse gas emissions claim was misleading because there were no reliable estimates for the carbon footprint of shale gas extraction, extraction carried the risk of methane emissions and there was no certainty that gas would be used instead of, rather than in addition to, coal.
Breitling said the winter shortage claim was based on media reports that the UK had variously been within “six hours” or “two days” of running out of liquified natural gas (LNG) supplies, with back-up supplies being a two-week boat trip away.
They acknowledged that it was debatable whether the UK would have run out of gas, and noted that the National Grid and the Department of Energy and Climate Change had reported that the energy markets were operating in the way they were designed during the period in question.
Breitling said US consumer gas prices had dropped from over 4.80 dollars/Btu (British Thermal Unit) to 2.30 dollars/Btu following the development of shale gas and suggested similar events could occur in the UK.
And it said natural gas had been shown to emit less carbon dioxide and methane than coal.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) noted that a technical fault in early 2013 had temporarily shut down one of the pipelines supplying the UK with gas, and that a coincidental period of cold weather had led to low gas storage levels that had ended with the arrival of supply ships bringing more LNG.
But it said: “We considered that there was insufficient evidence to demonstrate that the UK had been in real danger of running out of gas, and therefore that the reference to a ’near-catastrophic’ shortage was misleading.”
The ASA also found that the claim that energy prices would be lowered for millions had not been substantiated and was misleading and, taking the evidence as a whole, it was not certain that the development of UK shale gas resources would lead to a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions alongside a concurrent reduction in the use of coal for energy.
It ruled that the claims must not appear again in their current form, adding: “We told Breitling Energy Corporation to ensure that they held robust documentary evidence in support of claims likely to be regarded as objective and that were capable of objective substantiation, that matters of opinion were not presented as objective claims, and that their future ads did not suggest that their claims were universally accepted if a significant division of informed or scientific opinion existed.”
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