Reporting on the unconventional oil and gas industry and its use of hydraulic fracturing
4th March 2014 Shale UK conference report 1 To recover 15 per cent of shale gas from the Upper Bowland Basin in Lancashire would need 33,000 wells on 5,500 pads, an industry conference heard today. The estimate by Andy Aplin, Professor of Unconventional Petroleum Development at Durham University, […]
3rd March 2014 1. Balcombe: end of public consultation approaches WSCC/005/14/BA application by Cuadrilla Balcombe Ltd There are 10 days left for people to respond to Cuadrilla’s application to flow test and monitor its oil exploration well at Lower Stumble. (The consultation period ends on 13th March 2014).
2nd March 2014 As the shale gas industry acknowledges that local antagonism may its biggest challenge, guest writer Paul Seaman looks at what drives opposition and how the companies respond. A recent survey on attitudes in oil and gas companies found that 55% of the industry believed local […]
1st March 2014 March sees two major events in the fracking debate. They bring together some of the biggest names in the industry and, potentially, the largest gathering of the anti-fracking community.
28th February 2014 A freedom of information request has confirmed that Cuadrilla carried out no seismic surveys in the Balcombe area and is relying on data from the 1990s, which one geologist has said is inadequate. Last year, Cuadrilla drilled a vertical and a horizontal oil exploration well […]
25th February 2014 Frack Free Balcombe Residents’ Association is one of the latest organisations to highlight the links between Britain’s onshore oil and gas industry and Chinese investment. The association’s weekly newsletter (number 18) traces the links between Balcombe and Beijing. We’ve converted this into a flow chart. […]
23rd February 2014 We asked Cuadrilla questions about its planning application to flow test the oil exploration well at Balcombe and for a response to calls for it to contribute to the cost of policing the summer protests. Here are the unedited responses. Question: What is ‘acid etching’ […]
21st February 2014 The UK’s “number one shale gas conference” has moved from Manchester to Birmingham. Delegates to Shale UK received an email today telling them the original venue, Manchester Central, could no longer accommodate the event because it had another large conference taking place simultaneously. It also […]
21st February 2014 The green movement’s opposition to shale gas on climate change grounds came under attack on Wednesday (February 19th) from both the Government and the hydrocarbon industry. The Chancellor, George Osborne, and Francis Egan, the chief executive of Cuadrilla, both argued that shale gas would help […]
20th February 2014 According to a survey by Bloomberg News, the only company that plans to frack at least one well in the UK this year is IGas Energy Plc. The company has faced protests for the past three months from anti fracking campaigners camped outside its exploratory drilling […]
DRILL OR DROP? 