People living near a North Yorkshire village where small-scale fracking for gas is planned have extra opportunities this month to find out more.
The proposals near the village of Burniston near the North York Moors national park emerged in July 2024 when the companies behind the project submitted initial details to planners.
The proposals will now be discussed at a meeting for residents at Burniston and Cloughton village hall at 7pm on Thursday 19 September 2024.
The event will be opened by the newly-elected Labour MP, Alison Hume. Speakers include Simon Bowens, of Friends of the Earth, Dennis May, of Frack-Free Misson, Frack Free Ryedale campaigner Sue Gough, who campaigned against fracking at KM8 near Pickering, and Chris Garforth, of Frack Free Scarborough.
The would-be operator of the well, Europa Oil & Gas, has also organised a drop-in event at the same place a week later. The company invited villagers to meet its team and find out more about the plans from 1-6pm on Thursday 26th September 2024.
The company wants to use a controversial process, known as proppant squeeze, to increase the flow of gas.
This is defined by regulators as small-scale fracking. It injects liquid and proppant into the rocks surrounding a well at above fracture pressure.
Local people are already fighting the plans. The local MP, Labour’s newly-elected Alison Hume, has said she is “deeply concerned” and has asked the energy secretary to ban all forms of fracking.
In interviews, the would-be well operator, Europa Oil & Gas, said “it’s not going to cause a problem”.
Investor presentation
More details of the scheme emerged last week in a Europa presentation to investors, in which there was no reference to the proposed proppant squeeze.
The company said full plans would be submitted to North Yorkshire Council later this year. It would also apply for an environmental permit and carry out 3D seismic surveys in the final quarter of 2024.
Europa said it planned to start drilling for gas in the first three months of 2026.
The company said the preliminary design of the well, to be called Cloughton-2, was “nearing completion”. The well would be drilled to a length of about 1.6km, it said.
The well was described as a “step out”. This is a well that goes beyond the current boundaries of a known field in an unproven area. The purpose is usually to determine the extent of a hydrocarbon reservoir.
Gas was discovered in the area in 1986. The Cloughton-1 well, drilled that year, is off the A171 road north-west of the village of Cloughton. The industry regulator considers it to have been fully decommissioned.
The new well, if approved, would penetrate the carboniferous target, Europa said. The formation would be evaluated through wireline logging and coring.
The well is in the exploration licence area, PEDL343. This was issued in 2015 in the 14th round, the most recent auction organised by the industry regulator.
PEDL343 was described as a shale gas licence and is one of the few remaining from the 14th round. The rest were either handed back by operators or ran out of time (DrillOrDrop investigation on shale gas licences here).
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Please ignore an article published at about 9pm on Thursday 12 September 2024. This contained errors and has been deleted. Apologies for any confusion.
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