The UK Government could fast-track applications for fracking as part of new plans to give shale gas a boost in the country. According to reports new guidance will be issued this week moving to strengthen the power of ministers to step in following decisions from local authorities. It is understood ministers have become frustrated at attempts to get the shale gas revolution off the ground.
Business is so tough for oilfield giants Schlumberger and Halliburton that they have come up with a new sales pitch for crude producers halting work in the worst downturn in years. It amounts to this: "frack now and pay later." The moves by the world's No. 1 and No. 2 oil services companies show how they are scrambling to book sales of new technologies to customers short of cash after a 60 percent slide in crude to $45 a barrel. In some cases, they are willing to take on the role of traditional lenders, like banks, which have grown reluctant to lend since the price drop that began last summer, or act like producers by taking what are essentially stakes in wells.
The energy industry’s professional membership body yesterday lambasted the sector’s inability to provide clear information on fracking, the method of shale gas extraction. And, unable to tolerate the situation any longer, the Energy Institute has published its own guide to fracking, which is one of the most divisive issues surrounding the industry at present. In January, the Scottish government declared an indefinite moratorium on granting planning consent for fracking while further research was carried out.
The population of a U.S. oil boomtown that became a symbol of the fracking revolution is dropping fast because of the collapse in crude oil prices, according to an unusual metric: the amount of sewage produced. Williston, North Dakota, has seen its population drop about 6 percent since last summer, according to wastewater data relied upon heavily by city planning officials. They turned to measuring effluent because it was a much faster and more accurate way to track population than alternatives such as construction permits, school enrollment, tax receipts or airport boardings.
An energy company has applied for permission to explore the potential for fracking in north Nottinghamshire. IGas Limited want to drill 12 bore holes on land in Misson, close to the boundary with South Yorkshire.
Support for controversial fracking has fallen to a new low, according to an official Government survey. Only a fifth of people (21%) back extracting shale gas for use in the UK, the lowest level of support since the quarterly public attitudes survey by the Department of Energy and Climate Change first quizzed people on the issue in December 2013. Overall 28% of people opposed fracking, with 46% expressing no opinion either way, the survey of 2,118 UK households found. But the level of opposition was higher among people who said they knew about fracking, with 54% of those who know a lot about the process opposing it, compared to 32% backing it.
The Scottish Government has given assurances that it is “not against fracking”, according to the boss of a firm which runs Scotland’s largest petrochemical plant. Jim Ratcliffe, the chief executive and chairman of Ineos, which runs the Grangemouth plant, has suggested an onshore shale gas industry could potentially be set up in Scotland within a few years, despite an indefinite moratorium on granting planning consent for fracking - the method of gas extraction. The firm has ambitions to establish a large-scale shale gas industry, having acquired fracking exploration licences across 700 square miles of central Scotland.
Fracking faces an “uphill struggle” for public acceptability, Lord Chris Smith has admitted as his shale gas task force published a report on the local environment and health impacts of the industry. The task force said shale gas extraction could be safe for the local environment and people’s health in the UK if provisions were in place and regulated to prevent larger earthquakes, water contamination, gas wells leaking and methane pollution. The second interim report by the task force called for full disclosure to the public of the chemicals used in the process, to reassure people it is safe, and independent monitoring and regulation to make sure wells do not leak to prevent water contamination.
The Dutch government said on Friday it would ban shale gas drilling for five years and not renew existing exploration licences due to uncertainties about the environmental impact.
The Environment Secretary has been urged to apologise to communities facing fracking for “holding back” evidence of the risks of shale exploration in rural areas. And campaigners have called for fracking to be put on hold in the UK while a “genuinely independent, qualified body” reviews all the risks associated with the controversial process of extracting gas and oil. A draft report from the Environment Department (Defra) said fracking could reduce house prices, increase traffic, produce deafening noise for residents and damage the landscape in rural communities.
Lancashire County Council has rejected two planning applications over the course of the last week for hydraulic fracturing (‘fracking’), on traffic, noise and visual impact grounds. One site was recommended for refusal on traffic grounds, but the other was recommended for approval and was turned down against Council Officers’ advice. This decision has generated the most interest of the two.
County councillors have turned down plans to frack for shale gas in Lancashire. Councillors refused the application because they considered the development would cause an unacceptable impact on the landscape and visual amenities, in contrary to the Fylde Local Plan. Following the outcome, Friends of the Earth North West campaigner Furqan Naeem said: “People in Lancashire and across the UK who have been tirelessly campaigning against fracking will breathe a sigh of relief today - safe in the knowledge that this dirty industry that risks health, quality of life and the climate has been stopped in its tracks once again.
County councillors have turned down plans to frack for shale gas in Lancashire.
Councillors are finally expected to rule today whether fracking can go ahead in Lancashire. Energy firm Cuadrilla wants to explore for shale gas by drilling, hydraulically fracking and testing the flow of gas at site near Little Plumpton between Preston and Blackpool. Planning officers have recommended the plans should be passed subject to a number of conditions being met such as controlling time limits, hours of working, control of noise and highway matters.
Rejecting an application for fracking because of its visual and landscape impacts would be “unreasonable” in planning terms, councillors have been advised. A decision on energy firm Cuadrilla’s bid to explore for shale gas at a site between Preston and Blackpool was deferred yesterday until Monday to consider legal advice in writing. Councillors were previously given verbal legal advice over a motion to refuse the scheme because it did not meet the county’s minerals and waste local plan.
Councillors have deferred a decision on a planning application to frack for shale gas in Lancashire until next Monday.
Councillors have been under “intolerable pressure” to decide whether fracking for shale gas can go ahead in Lancashire, a public meeting has heard. The 15 members of Lancashire County Council’s development control committee are debating the proposals by energy firm Cuadrilla ahead of making an expected final decision today. Cuadrilla wants to develop two new sites between Preston and Blackpool to explore for shale gas by drilling, fracking and testing the flow of gas.
Cuardrilla fracking protesters have taken to the streets ahead of today's council decision. Fashion designer and personality Vivienne Westwood is among those expected to attend a rally outside Lancashire County Hall in Preston.
New U.S. fracking safety rules set to take effect Wednesday were put on hold by a Wyoming federal judge who said he needed more evidence to decide whether to block them as requested by drillers and four western states. Before a courtroom audience in Casper that included the state attorneys general of Wyoming and North Dakota, U.S. District Judge Scott Skavdahl said he couldn’t grant or reject a bid for a longer-lasting order because he needed more information about the federal government’s process for making such rules.
uncillors will decide today on whether to give the green light to fracking for shale gas in Lancashire. Energy firm Cuadrilla wants to develop two new sites between Preston and Blackpool to explore for shale gas by drilling, fracking and testing the flow of gas.
Residents living near a proposed fracking site have urged councillors to “be brave” and refuse to give it the go-ahead. Energy firm Cuadrilla wants to develop two new sites between Preston and Blackpool to explore for shale gas by drilling, fracking and testing the flow of gas. A report from Lancashire County Council planning officials recommended that one of the sites - at Preston New Road near Little Plumpton - be passed subject to a number of conditions being met such as hours of working, control of noise and highway matters.
High noon for the Obama administration’s stricter rules for fracking on public lands has arrived on the Wyoming range. Four western states at the center of the shale oil boom are headed for a courtroom showdown Tuesday over who should have the last word on rules for extracting oil and natural gas from federal property within their borders.
Rejecting plans for test fracking in Lancashire would send a message that the county was not open for business and investment, a campaign group has warned. Members of the North West Energy Task Force said it would be a missed opportunity to create jobs and “significantly” boost the local economy. The coalition, which includes local businesses, academics, farmers and students, spoke out on the eve of the beginning of the decision-making process on proposals by shale company Cuadrilla for two sites between Preston and Blackpool.
Environmental campaigners have called on the UK Government to swiftly make public the full version of a heavily redacted report into the impacts of fracking following a ruling by the Information Commissioner in their favour. The commissioner's office is insisting the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) publish in full.
tain should embrace fracking or be condemned to higher energy bills and fewer jobs, George Osborne has said. The Chancellor also insisted he did not want to be part of a generation “that says all the economic activity was happening somewhere else in the world” as he reiterated his support for the extraction of underground shale gas.