The future of hydraulic fracturing – fracking – for gas exploration in the UK remains open, said Australian engineering firm AJ Lucas (Lucas).
MORATORIUM
As of February 2020, Lucas owned 97% of shares in British oil and gas exploration company Cuadrilla Resources operating in Lancashire.
In 2019, the Government imposed a moratorium following a report which found that it was impossible to predict accurately the danger of earth tremors from gas extraction.
Lucas said it expected a government decision in 2021 on whether it could continue operations in the county.
In a statement last week, the company said it was working with other UK shale gas companies and independent scientific experts to obtain evidence demonstrating that shale gas appraisal and commercialisation could be safely conducted.
“Lucas expects the moratorium to be lifted and exploration to resume once appropriate measures are agreed and put in place to manage and mitigate risks from induced seismicity.
“However, we would not expect that decision to occur before 2021.”
EMISSIONS
Cuadrilla added that exploration work had shown that the Bowland [Lancashire] shale was a world class resource containing large volumes of high-quality indigenous natural gas.
“We continue to believe that indigenous gas production is preferable to importing increasing quantities of overseas gas with up to double the pre-combustion emissions and no economic benefit for UK workers, businesses or communities.”
EVIDENCE
The statement follows the Government’s Energy Minister Kwasi Kwarteng’s comments on 18 June that fracking in the UK had ended.
“We had a moratorium on fracking last year and frankly the debate’s moved on.
“It is not something that we’re looking to do,” he told the BBC.
“We’ve always said we’d be evidence-backed, so if there was a time when the science evidence changed our minds, we would be open to that.
“But for now, fracking is over.”
PROTESTS
In September 2019, Cuadrilla stopped fracking on previously agricultural land following local and national protests, and regular earthquakes including one of 2.9-magnitude on 26 August.
The company’s licence expired at the end of November 2019.
LICENCES
Cuadrilla was set up in 2007 financed by Lucas which at the time owned 47% along with equity firm Riverstone Holdings (45%), while Cuadrilla employees owned the remaining 8%.
In February 2020, Lucas bought Riverstone’s shares and now owns approximately 93%.
In 2011, Cuadrilla, based in Bamber Bridge, Lancashire, announced it had discovered 200 trillion cubic feet of gas under the Fylde Coast.
In 2013 Cuadrilla held licences for ten sites in the UK including one in Balcombe West Sussex, and had drilled three holes in Lancashire.