With the spectre of a no-deal Brexit looming, the UK government no doubt has more immediate worries than the fate of a shale gas industry that has never got off the ground – or really into it. For the industry, of course, the situation is reversed. Its champions, Francis Egan, CEO of Cuadrilla (Preston / UK; www.cuadrillaresources.com), and Jim Ratcliffe, chairman of Ineos (Rolle / Switzerland; www.ineos.com) are steaming over the government’s refusal to loosen its rules mandating a stop to drilling at prospective shale sites if the activity generates earth tremors with a magnitude of 0.5 or higher on the Richter scale. The government has also rejected a planning appeal by Cuadrilla to frack at a second site in Lancashire county, citing traffic concerns.

The angry communications to Westminster by the two industry chieftains have fallen largely on deaf ears. While London up to now has been supportive of the shale gas industry and the courts have repeatedly found for the drillers in disputes with environmental advocacy groups and local councils – in contrast to authorities in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – the government apparently wants to draw the line at earthquakes.

In response to the industry’s pleas, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has stressed that the UK’s “world-leading regulations” will remain in place until further notice, “to ensure fracking happens safely and responsibly.” In a statement widely quoted by the national press, the department said, “We set these regulations in consultation with industry and we have no plans to review them.” The two would-be frackers have rolled out an array of scientific opinion to counter the UK’s claims that earthquakes of the magnitude seen thus far are not a problem. One of them, head of seismicity at the British Geological Survey Brian Baptie, called the government’s limits “quite conservative.” Baptie said he believed the limits could be safely lifted to as high as 1.5-magnitude.

While Ineos has not yet fracked its first well, Cuadrilla’s heavy equipment has been idled since December 2018 following several minor earth tremors in the year’s last three months – see Plasteurope.com of 31.10.2018. The subsidiary of an Australian energy conglomerate had just recommenced drilling in Lancashire in October after a seven-year hiatus – punctuated by a one-and-a-half year nationwide moratorium on fracking triggered by earthquakes of 2.3 and 1.4 magnitude at Blackpool and the Fylde, close to the current drilling site. Last autumn’s tremors ranged up to a magnitude of 1.5.

In taking issue with the government’s refusal to engage, Egan threatened that upholding the earthquake restrictions would kill the industry, while hinting that exploration to date has confirmed a “rich reservoir” of gas flowing at a peak of 5,663 m³ a day. This could be increased to about 85,000-227,000 m³ if Caudrilla were allowed to frack the entire length of the well, he suggested. Up to now, the company has only been able to frack about 5%.

Ineos has also been laying it on thick. Ratcliffe called the earthquake restrictions “simply unworkable” and charged that the government’s earthquake policy would cause an “energy crisis” and “irreparable damage” to the economy. Tom Pickering, COO of Ineos Shale, told a UK newspaper last week that the company’s test drills in Nottinghamshire had found an average level of 1.7 m³ per tonne of gas – compared with an average 1.1 m³ per tonne at a vast shale field in Texas. Pickering called it “the most significant drilling result so far in the short history of Britain’s shale industry.”

For the UK section of the environmental group Friends of the Earth (London; www.friendsoftheearth.uk), one of the earliest and most frequent anti-fracking campaigners, the complaints from the energy companies feel like "a final desperate plea from an unwanted, struggling industry." Jim Ratcliffe is right that the UK needs a new energy policy, but one that is based on energy-saving and renewables, not fracking and more fossil fuels, campaigner Jamie Peters said.