Fracking in Britain

Half of Britain to be offered for shale gas drilling as fracking areas face 50 trucks passing each day

Ministers "stepping up the search for shale" with new exploration rights to be offered to fracking firms next summer

the Telegraph,

17 December, 2013

Fracking could take place across more than half of Britain under plans announced by the Government to “step up the search” for shale gas and oil.

Ministers said they would offer energy companies the chance for rights to drill across more than 37,000 square miles, stretching from central Scotland to the south coast.

Every county in England except Cornwall could have shale gas exploration, according to a map showing areas the Government plans to offer to energy companies.

A Government-commissioned report released on Tuesday said as many as 2,880 wells could be drilled, generating up to a fifth of the country’s annual gas demand at peak and creating as many as 32,000 jobs.

Michael Fallon, the energy minister, said that shale was “an exciting prospect, which could bring growth, jobs and energy security”.

However, the report warned that communities near sites where drilling took place could see a large increase in traffic

Residents could face as many as 51 lorry journeys each day for three years, the Government-commissioned study by consultancy Amec said.

It also warned of potential strain on facilities for handling the waste water generated by hydraulic fracturing, the process known as fracking which involves pumping water, sand and chemicals into rocks at high pressure to extract gas.

There were also concerns over the the potential environmental impact on the countryside.

The areas to be offered to companies for fracking include several National Parks, numerous Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and sites deemed of “international importance” for conservation and wildlife.

So far companies have rights to drill in 176 “licence” areas across 7,300 square miles of Britain, mostly concentrated in and around Lancashire, Cheshire, Yorkshire and Sussex.

The addition of the areas mapped out on Tuesday means more than half of Britain, and about two-thirds of England, will be open to fracking.

Oil and gas companies will be invited to apply for access in a “licensing round” next summer. Companies will then need a series of planning and environmental permits before they are allowed to drill.

Mr Fallon said it was unlikely that companies would apply for licences in every area, but admitted that the area in which licences are taken up could roughly double. The report suggests up to 150 licences could be granted.

Communities where fracking takes place have been promised £100,000 in benefits by shale gas companies during initial exploration, and then a one per cent share of the revenues if fracking succeeds and gas is produced.

Amec said this could be worth up to £4.8m per drilling site over the lifetime of the well. Total community benefits from fracking across 150 new licences could reach £600m.

Ministers are keen to encourage exploration for shale, which they believe could help to bring down energy prices.

A report earlier this year by the British Geological Survey suggested there could be enough gas in the north of England alone to supply the UK for more than 40 years.

“We have seen the enormous impact that shale gas extraction in the States has had on its economy, both on household bills and industrial prices. It has had a strong impact there and it has the potential to have an impact here,” Mr Fallon said.

“It will reduce our dependence on liquid natural gas. We import over half our gas at the moment and we face the prospect of having to import 70 per cent of our gas by 2030 if we haven’t found any shale by then.

"If we do find shale that will obviously reduce our dependence on those imports and reduce our dependence on wholesale gas prices. That in turn will be good for the economy”.

However the scale of shale production is highly uncertain. Amec’s report shows that in a “low” scenario there could be as few as 180 wells drilled in the new areas, creating as few as 2,500 jobs.

The report said that fracking could “have an adverse impact on traffic congestion, noise or air quality” . There could be between 14 and 36 lorries a day for up to 13 weeks of exploratory drilling, and then between 17 and 51 a day for a production period of up to 145 weeks.

Mr Fallon said lorry movements were “matters for each individual site”. He added: “Planning authorities have the power to impose conditions so the impact on the local quality of life will not be unacceptable.”

Peak annual gas production from the new licence areas could be as much as 706 billion cubic feet a year.

Britain’s current annual gas demand is 3.52 trillion cubic feet, and the total amount of gas produced from 150 new licences through the 2020s and into the 2030s could reach about 8.6 trillion cubic feet, Amec said.

A similar volume could be expected from the existing areas, Government officials said.

More than 650,000 cubic feet of waste water could be produced by each well, which could “place a substantial burden on existing waste water treatment 

infrastructure capacity”, Amec warned, although co-operation with water companies and local planning authorities could address this problem.

The report also warned there could be a “significant negative effect on climate change” at a local level.

The RSPB criticised the Government for failing to exclude environmentally-sensitive areas.

Harry Huyton, RSPB head of energy and climate policy, said: “The licensing area that is being considered covers many important natural areas, from Liverpool Bay to the Thames Estuary.

“We asked that the most ecologically sensitive parts of the country, such as protected areas, be excluded from licensing. Sadly, this scenario is not even considered in the documents released by the Government today because it might have the 'unintended consequence’ of restricting fracking activity.

“We believe that the impacts of commercial shale gas exploitation on the climate and on wildlife should fully assessed and that the industry should be strictly regulated to minimise any potential impact. Today’s announcements have done nothing to reassure us that Government will deliver this.”

The majority of the 37,000 square miles that will be offered in the so-called “14th licensing round” was offered up five years ago in the 13th round.

At the time, very little was known about Britain’s shale potential and so most of it was snubbed by oil and gas companies.

But since then shale gas has since transformed the energy landscape in the US and ministers hope it could do the same here.

Only a handful of shale gas exploration wells have so far been drilled while early attempts at fracking by Cuadrilla near Blackpool in 2011 caused two earth tremors that led to an 18-month ban on fracking.

Cuadrilla on Tuesday announced it was abandoning the Preese Hall site where the earthquakes were caused and would concentrate on drilling elsewhere instead.

Some of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies such as the French energy giant Total now want to join the search for shale in Britain. Centrica, the owner of British Gas, and France’s GDF Suez have bought into existing licence areas