Flatbed lorry arriving to collect equipment from Cuadrilla’s Preston New Road fracking site, 17 April 2019. Photo: Chris Whynott
Lorries have been taking equipment off Cuadrilla’s fracking site near Blackpool over the past two days.
Eye witnesses outside the Preston New Road site have photographed staff lowering the gooseneck, the curved section of the coiled tubing tower. They also recorded tanks and other equipment leaving the site.
Cuadrilla told DrillOrDrop this afternoon:
“We have demobilised some of the specialist equipment from our shale gas exploration site at Preston New Road as we’ve finished this particular part of the work programme.
“We’re looking forward now to the next phase of hydraulic fracturing and unlocking a huge economic opportunity for the county and country for decades to come.”
Opponents and supporters of the industry have been closely watching movements at Preston New Road, where the UK’s first and only horizontal shale gas well was fracked last year.
The well, called PNR 1-z, was fracked between 15 October and 17 December 2018, causing more than 50 small earth tremors.
Confidential logs have confirmed that two-thirds of the well was not fracked during the operation and fracking paused for more than a month.
There was a mechanical failure in one section of fracking equipment and the well had to be cemented and milled to solve the problem. Kit became stuck in the well and was abandoned.
Cuadrilla demobilised the site before Christmas and last month announced it had brought in specialist equipment, not including fracking pumps.
The company has planning permission to drill and frack two more wells and frack the second well, PNR 2. To comply with a condition of the permission, this work must be completed by 30 November 2019.
Cuadrilla does not yet have permission from the Environment Agency to frack PNR 2.
Categories: Industry
DRILL OR DROP? 
Maybe the equipment is needed at another current Cuadrilla development either here or abroad. Does anyone know where these sites are?
It would be good publicity for Cuadrilla to let us see how well all their other developments are doing and what benefits the local communities are receiving. It would also be good to see how much gas flow and revenue these other sites are generating.
There are other sites aren’t there?
Time running out. Tick tock. Tick tock.
Pleas by both Cuadrilla and Ineos, the energy and petrochemicals company that hopes to frack for shale in England, have been rebuffed by the government and the regulator, although the Oil and Gas Authority (OGA) said in February it was carrying out a “scientific analysis” of the data gathered from Cuadrilla’s recent work.
This analysis did not, however, constitute a review of the traffic light system, the regulator stressed.
It looks like a “ghost” site, they’ll be filming a Scooby Doo there next. “We would have got away with it if it hadn’t been for those pesky earthquakes!”
John: this information you say you are looking for, exists on Cuadrillas website… its good reading!
Like all the anti’s they believe we can power the world by social media, keyboard warrior tactics, fanatical extinction rebelling and hot air from their mouths and a£&@‘s!
Cuadrilla is losing this war. Government is no longer supporting the industry. Too many hickups by Cuadrilla in their operations. And this is all the government need to shut the industry down to satisfy the anti frackers.
Induced earthquakes are just a sign for much bigger problem. Waste water disposal in subsurface formations are needed if fracking is meant to be economically justified. These injected waste waters will lubricate the faults and open up fractures and find their way to the surface eventually and pollute undeeground water reserves. This is a disaster that should not take place by any means.
I think you are behind the times. In the U.K. waste water is not reinjected, it is taken away and treated. You may have noted we do not have the water shortages of US states like a Texas so no need to reinject.
Maybe we should just chuck it down the frack well and have done with it eh?
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jun/18/are-we-running-out-of-water
Gove and his Tory colleagues say that they are aware of the issues raised by the actions of Extinction Rebellion in London and elsewhere.
Awareness isn’t sufficient to save our Environment and Humanity, urgent action is needed as proclaimed by no less than Sir David Attenborough!
Revoking all PEDLs would be a great start and redirecting all Oil and Gas Industry subsidies to Renewable Energy projects would be the ideal next step.
Maybe then the Tories would be taken seriously and have a share in a true Coalition Government pledged to do it’s best for people and the planet, before it’s too late!
Peter, PLEASE answer the question, how do we heat the homes of the elderly on a freezing windless night in February.
The same way we heat the homes of ALL people on a windless night in February; but thankfully, not with shale gas 🙂
And, the Mad Hatter would hold court, Peter!
Meanwhile, not a lot of sympathy/empathy for E.R in my neck of the woods. Over played their hand and once Easter is upon us and the police can earn bigger bucks the situation will be returned to normal.
10m to set off for Easter break-looks as if a lot of the antis have already done so. A few left offering chocolate to JC. Wonder if someone needs to tell them how that gets to the UK?
The real indication that Cuadrilla are gone from Preston New Road for good will be the removal of the flare stacks!
Please remember that Cuadrilla have to ‘drill or drop’ before this Christmas. I really don’t think an extension of their licence will be granted in today’s (political) climate especially after the broadcast by Sir David Attenborough last night.
I’m sure that some posters on here will question the gentleman’s credentials but by doing so they will just humiliate themselves.
So, one individual has a view! Now, if it had been Simon Cowell it may have been more influential to many. Maybe he should have mentioned Trump pulled USA out of the 2016 Paris agreement on climate change but greenhouse gas emissions in USA fell 2.7 per cent in 2016-17, more than anywhere else in the world. So, anti-capitalist calls for a control economy are a bit odd, when those control economies are following the opposite trend.
But, I do appreciate all the air miles he puts in to be able to tell others not to!
Think you will find the political climate will be very different by the end of this year, Peter. I suspect it will not be the climate you would prefer but that is the problem with fixed term Parliaments.
Zero emissions by 2025 is just nonsense. The National Grid has said that if we replace gas central heating with electric heating it will require a three fold increase in electricity supply which would have to come from low carbon sources, I don’t suppose a massive increase in nuclear power would be very popular with the green movement so we are talking about a massive ramp up of weather dependent renewables. After that comes the electricity required to charge battery cars and the still nearly non-existent electric lorries.
My Doomsday scenario (to match the climate change catastrophe envisaged by the Greens) is that on a still February night with the temperature minus 6, the Greens will be congratulating themselves on saving the planet whilst the elderly and poor freeze in their tens of thousands. And geopolitical disputes erupt over the price and supply of cobalt and rare minerals needed in green technology.
Let’s be clear, Socialism is about worker’’s ownership of the means of production and a more equal sharing of resources, not cutting the overall amount of resources. Remember that one of the biggest left wing crusades in recent years was an effort to save the coal industry. I presume Green Party members would have been opposing the miners in that dispute.
So, Shalewatcher:
‘whilst the elderly and poor freeze in their tens of thousands.’ – perhaps you could provide us with some evidence to support your scenario?
Here’s one for you:
In twelve years, when the temperature on the African Continent has risen to 1.5 above pre-industrial, when food is no longer able to be grown to feed the population, currently approximately a third of Europe’s, together with all species that have not been extinguished by the ongoing mass extinction, then where exactly do you think they will go?
And if food production in Europe is already being hit by climate change [last year cereal crops and potato yields significantly reduced in the UK due to lack of rainfall in Spring (predicted weather pattern for Northern Europe as overall planet temperature rises)], how will we feed everyone already here?
If you cannot answer these questions, do some proper research and maybe your contrary-wise statements about the elderly may seem a little foolish?
By the way, anyone who uses the ‘poverty card’ in a futile argument and does not go out and assist those in our society who need our help through this governance’s austerity policies, should be ashamed of themselves.