Cuadrilla’s Preston New Road fracking site, 31 October 2018. Photo: Eddie Thornton
The fracking company that warned today it was “about to choke” from regulations on earth tremors worked with government officials six years ago to develop rules that were stricter than those used in other countries.
Francis Egan, chief executive of Cuadrilla, complained in the Financial Times that the UK shale gas industry could be “strangled before birth”. In an interview with The Times, he said “we are not getting effective fractures” and that unrepresentative results could “turn off investors”.
Last week, Mr Egan told the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy that the rules on seismic events triggered by fracking needed to be relaxed to make the process commercially-viable in the UK. It looks unlikely that he got the answer he wanted. The energy minister, Claire Perry, said today a change to the regulations would be “foolish” at the moment.
But in 2012, Mr Egan appeared to take a different approach, accepting seismicity thresholds “well below levels commonly used worldwide” and “a much larger factor of safety at this exploratory stage”.
Agreed earthquake limits
In a letter dated 1 November 2012, Mr Egan answered questions put to him by the then energy minister, John Hayes, about changes implemented by Cuadrilla on monitoring and controlling seismic events during fracking.
The questions were prompted by earthquakes linked to Cuadrilla’s fracks at Preese Hall, another site near Blackpool, in 2011. Two earthquakes measured 2.3ML and 1.5ML and were felt by people in the Blackpool area. There were reports of damage on the surface and evidence of deformation of the shale gas well.
Mr Egan told Mr Hayes:
“In conjunction with industry experts and your team at DECC we have developed a “traffic light” seismic monitoring and mitigation system”.
He explained that fracking would be slowed down or stopped if seismic activity exceeded pre-determined levels “such that there are no ‘felt’ seismic events at surface.”
Mr Egan said:
“The concept of a seismic traffic light system itself is not new, having been extensively used for geothermal and other projects worldwide.
“The traffic light levels set for our potential forthcoming fracturing operation in Lancashire have, however, been set well below levels commonly used worldwide to ensure that we maintain a much larger factor of safety at this exploratory stage.”
The letter did not challenge the recommendation on seismicity controls already made in a report for the Department of Energy and Climate Change on the Blackpool earthquake. The authors, Green, Styles and Baptie, had proposed a red traffic light level of 0.5ML.
In December 2012, a month after Mr Egan’s letter, the then energy secretary, Ed Davey, issued a written ministerial statement in which he confirmed the red light should be triggered by events measuring 0.5ML or above. He described this as “an appropriately precautionary approach.” DrillOrDrop report The shadow of Preese Hall
Fracking-induced tremors
Ed Davey’s traffic light system was first used in October 2018 when Cuadrilla started fracking at Preston New Road.
In the past fortnight, there have been more than 30 seismic events recorded near the site on the edge of Blackpool. Cuadrilla has temporarily suspended fracking three times when seismic events passed thresholds in the traffic light system.
So far, the largest magnitudes of tremors during fracking, as measured by the British Geological Survey, have been 0.8ML (local magnitude) and 1.1ML.
Mr Egan has called for the red light threshold to be lifted from 0.5ML to 2.0ML, which he said was used for fracking in some other countries and was below that used in North America.
He told The Times:
“We are not getting effective fractures. We are not getting enough sand into the ground to get a good test.
“We may not want to flow test it because it’s not a totally indicative representation of what this shale rock could do if tested with sensible [earthquake] limits.”
Mr Egan told the Financial Times:
“It certainly looks like it would be — I can’t say impossible — but I could say very difficult to make this a commercial venture if you had to continue operating within a 0.5 red line.”
Emily Gosden, of The Times, tweeted that the energy minister, Claire Perry, looked unlikely to review the limits immediately. The minister was quoted as saying:
“We will review this, as I think Sir Ed Davey in his written ministerial statement originally said, who set the guidelines like this, we clearly need to look at this when we get into an operational state.
“But it would be a very foolish politician who would do things that would be considered to be relaxing regulatory standards when we are trying to reassure people about safety.”
DrillOrDrop asked Cuadrilla why Mr Egan offered a traffic light system “well below” worldwide levels in 2012 but was now seeking a level of 2.0ML.
A spokesperson said:
“The traffic light system was setup by DECC. Mr Egan was simply observing in the letter that the concept of a traffic light system is not new and that UK shale has a traffic light system set at far levels lower than those set worldwide. And that opinion has not changed.
“What has changed since 2012 is that we have begun fracking the first horizontal well into UK shale rock and the evidence so far is that the Traffic Light System is working, as we have said before, but the red light threshold is clearly set very low and all the seismicity created so far has a level that is way below anything that can be felt at surface and a very long way from anything that would cause damage or harm. The micro-seismic events have not impacted on well integrity and indeed the larger events at the Preese Hall well likewise did not lead to any loss of well integrity.”
The local Conservative MP for Preston New Road rejected Cuadrilla’s call for a higher red light level.
Mark Menzies, speaking in a debate on shale gas planning today, said:
“For six years the industry was not approaching me, or not approaching anyone, to say that this threshold was far too low.
“We now have calls to say that actually it needs to be a 1.5 or it needs to be a 2 in order to trigger a red event.
“I’m sorry but that ship has sailed. You had six years in order to make the case for that and no case was made.”
Categories: Regulation
DRILL OR DROP? 
I suggest you stick to the coffee, Richard.
Big header alert!
One just for you, Richard.
How many antis to change a lightbulb?
Well, starts with one third of the population, but few know much about the subject and the remainder want to keep away from danger utilising the precautionary principle.
Within the remainder, they can not agree whether it is valid to change it until they know where the electricity is coming from, and that no one made any profit from producing it. Almost made a decision and then suddenly realised that the energy making the light bulb was also an issue.
So, punch line, they just let the lights go out.
One just for you, Martin
How many antis does it take to change a lightbulb?
One……..
that’s it.
But for the prolific anti anti posters, it does mean getting out of the armchair and detaching some fingers from the keyboard though, so i can see your difficulty with that concept.
I have found the remedy to that, PhilC.
I only post when I have something that I feel is likely to be well received by some.
Meanwhile, you can always try some “poetry”, or “header alerts” to fill the empty hours.
(Armchair posting? Oh, must try that one day.)
Ha! Ha! Whoops! I thought you claim not to read anything i write? Ooooh dear? Not true is it? Just like the content of many posts, all a bit paunch and jadey “thats the way to do it!”
The old nerve endings must be getting a bit over sensitive? I see no remedy old thing, just a knee jerk response and not a very well thought out one at that.
[Edited by moderator]
Unlike the PR hot deskers i work most days so i dont post for weeks sometimes, and when i do it receives the grossest response that they can make as i assume to put me off writing again, unfortunately for them it has the opposite effect.
This week is Halloween and i refuse to participate in that, though its obligatory for the children so i take the week off and tell them why.
I post here usually when something needs to be said, or unsaid, or to inject a little humour, can the anti antis say the same? No, of course not, they just sit there all day posting grievous bodily nonsense hoping someone might mistake it for something intelligent?
It doesnt work either.
I work with people who need to be protected from the sort of people who would exploit them for political point scoring. I prefer, when i do post, to have some fun and not have these dead weight anti anti soul crushing death knell pronouncements that the anti antis prefer to drop from a great depth
Something that apparently you guys don’t appreciate or understand, is poetry, or songs, or literature or indeed anything to raise the execrable and occasionally illiterate level of drivel and twaddle peddled by the vastly over prolific anti anti armchair PR hot desk keyboard warriors such as you demonstrate so amply far far far too often?
Get out and enjoy the sunshine tomorrow Martin, don’t stay in a punish keyboard any more, there is life out there, and the sunshine is still free.
Tomorrow its off to see the family and friends, and have a walk along the tow path besides the river just south of Bath, but i am sure we will cross keyboards on Sunday, just for fun you understand!
..or Martin, you could just pinch elements from the great posts from those that decimate your contrary-wise and try and create an illusion of credibility 😉
How many light bulbs does it take to illuminate MC’s posts? Nah, leave the light off………