Cuadrilla’s Preston New Road shale gas site, 10 August 2017. Photo: Katrina Lawrie
The shale gas company, Cuadrilla, said today it had doubled the amount of money it had spent in Lancashire in the second quarter of the year.
The company today released the latest figures of what it called its “Lancashire Commitments Tracker, for the period up to 30 June 2017.
The campaign group, Frack Free Lancashire, said Cuadrilla’s figures showed it had added 0.01% to the county’s economy and it was “laughable” to suggest this was a “significant boost”.
Cuadrilla tracker up to 30 June 2017
According to the document, Cuadrilla’s total spending, direct and indirect, in the county now stood at £2.9m. This was up from £1.47m in the previous release covering up to March 2017 (see left-hand chart below).
The figures show that the company had created 18 full time employees up to 30 June 2017, compared with 14 in the previous figures.
The number of contractors had also risen, from 14 for the period up to March 2017, to 19 up to June 2017. Apprentices rose from two to five over the same period.
The period from December 2016-March 2017 saw no new full time jobs, apprentices or internships, despite the start of work at the Preston New Road site near Blackpool.
Cuadrilla made no local community donations during the second quarter of the year. Local community sponsorships increased by £13,000, up 12.5%.
The number of businesses registering with the supply chain portal, rose 137, from 432 to 569.
Cuadrilla’s chief executive, Francis Egan, said:
“These figures clearly demonstrate that our Preston New Road exploration site in Lancashire has already significantly boosted the county’s economy as well as creating jobs for local people.
“As we start drilling the first exploration wells within the coming week we are proud to continue to put Lancashire first in order to ensure the county continues to benefit from this important national need of exploring for a new indigenous source of natural gas.”
A spokesperson for Frack Free Lancashire said:
“The value of the Lancashire economy is about £30 billion. Even assuming that £2.3 million does not include spend with Greater Manchester-based A.E. Yates, it is laughable to suggest that an injection of 0.01% of the total could “significantly boost” the county’s economy. Perhaps Cuadrilla has a different definition of the words “significant” and “boost” to the rest of us?”
“It is also interesting to note that although the number of businesses registering with the supply chain portal, rose 137 from 432 to 569 in the last quarter, this is still a long way short of the 715 they claimed as recently as January. Can Cuadrilla explain where the rest of these registrations have gone?”
Categories: Industry
DRILL OR DROP? 
Oh yeah. Exploration is a stone throw away. Can’t wait to get started.
Dong energy on UK offshore wind spending. Clean reliable energy. Prices coming down much faster than expected due to competition from numerous companies keen to enter this fast growing UK energy market.
“It represents a massive vote of confidence to the UK offshore wind industry and confirms our commitment to the Humber region where by 2019 we expect to have invested around 6 billion pounds,” Brent Cheshire, DONG Energy’s UK country chairman, said in a statement.
Big money and bright future for the larger wiser corporations.
meanwhile in small field in Lancashire
Cuadrilla’s seventh year of producing no energy for the UK.
Giddy up snail shale with your overpriced dated fossil fuel with no viable market.
One would imagine Centrica want gas, not excuses, technical failings, and delays.
You are so naive as to how much the British tax payer is being ripped off by foreign companies constructing our ‘renewables’. Start focusing all your ‘energy’ on these dodgy deals.
More bad news for the floundering UK shale gas non starter as home grown North sea output rises.
Reuters claim the region is expected to report its third annual production rise in a row in 2017, reversing years of sliding output.
North sea oil and gas is nearly half the price to produce than Centricas price predictions for UK shale.
The race is lost for UK shale. Cheap abundant North sea oil and gas and rapid price reductions of renewables.
North sea decommissioning costs to be paid for regardless.
A bit to go yet as shale companies keep up the hype to squeeze the last drops of the naive speculators.
When big scams are created by people with less intelligence than those it hopes to scam it is obviously destined to failure, but of course the creators would not be able to see that.
Still not grasping the fact the vast majority of shale exploration firms are in the hands of PE yet John?
North Sea oil is going to lose more and more investment as we come to realise boom oil prices are long gone. Onshore is far cheaper.
Really John?? I have rarely seen even you post such confused “information”. I think you will find that N.Sea is being seen as too expensive for new exploration and companies are looking elsewhere. Keep up the hype- yes, all irrelevant why oil is around $50/barrel, absolutely nothing to do with fracking and all just speculation! People who think otherwise just have less intelligence. “Cheap abundant North sea oil and gas”-so why are we importing fracked gas from USA and why is there little oil from N.Sea being shipped into Fawley Refinery?? Oh dear.
I am surprised the antis are giving way to fiction so quickly. Seems a little earlier to throw in the towel.
If anyone actually wants to see the real future of alternative energy, just take a look at the letters column in today’s Times (I know there is a problem with following such references and reading such, but I will persevere with my belief there is a degree of literacy out there.)
Surprise, surprise-it is fossil fuel, but with a modern twist! Now, who would have considered that? Well, some of us have and happen to agree with it, not in place of turbines, solar etc., but also, not the other way round. A different route, but that has long been the case. I think they have a song about that in Scotland.