Tag Archives: fracking

It is – as the former directors of Carillion can attest – entirely possible to simultaneously make and lose money hand over fist.  All you have to do is to persuade gullible investors to loan you vast sums of money against the promise of future riches.  Only when it becomes …

In a surprise move last week, UK Business Secretary Greg Clark made approval for fracking conditional on an assessment of company finances.  This seems to mark a distinct shift in policy compared to the gung-ho approach to fracking under David Cameron. The apparent cause of Clark’s caution concerns Third Energy’s …

The embryonic, and probably unprofitable, UK shale gas industry faces yet another obstacle according to Robin Grayson, a geologist and member of the Petroleum Exploration Society of Great Britain. Grayson, reported in the Blackpool Gazette, claims that any shale gas recovered from the Bowland shale formation will contain a high …

The cost of policing the anti-fracking demonstrations at Kirby Misperton in North Yorkshire rose dramatically in October according to the latest information from Julia Mulligan, Police and Crime Commissioner for North Yorkshire. In the period up to 31 August, prior to Third Energy starting work, policing had cost just £80,238.  This …

The UK government is putting the final touches to the new national Shale Wealth Fund which is intended to share up to 10 percent of the profits from fracking among the communities affected. According to the Yorkshire Post: “The Shale Wealth Fund will see communities near ‘significant shale gas reserves’ …

The big surprise in the Government’s Cost of Energy review by energy economist Dieter Helm is that fracking gets just one mention; and only then in a global rather than UK context: “Technological change within the energy sector is profound. Fracking and shale oil and shale gas have already changed …

According to figures released by  Julia Mulligan, North Yorkshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner the policing costs at just a single fracking well in Kirby Misperton added an additional £80,238 up to 31 August 2017.  However, once Third Energy’s operations began, the policing costs increased dramatically, adding a further £101,476 during …

UK government enthusiasm for hydraulically fractured shale gas looks to be waning fast.  The latest signs of this were picked up last week by Steve Topple in The Canary: “Campaigners are claiming that the arguments for fracking are ‘toppling like dominoes’ after the government appeared to backtrack not once, but twice …

While most anti-fracking concerns centre on the potential environmental damage it can cause, and a few raise doubts around unsuitable geology and geography, the industry’s Achilles ’ heel is in the way that it is financed. In the UK, proponents of fracking reference the apparent economic miracle in the USA …

The Scottish Government is expected to announce an outright ban on fracking later this week according to Rob Edwards at Herald Scotland: “Ministers are putting the finishing touches to a permanent ban, replacing the moratorium they started in January 2015. This will spell the end of plans by the energy …