Who pays for clean-ups and decommissioning if an onshore operator goes bust? It’s a question that is concerning MPs and landowners. In this guest post, researcher and anti-fracking campaigner, Ben Dean, looks at the rules for decommissioning and argues for tougher controls.
Four campaigners who spent a total of 99 hours on top of lorries delivering to Cuadrilla’s shale gas site could become the first people to be jailed for an anti-fracking protest.
As Cuadrilla prepares to frack the UK’s first horizontal shale gas well, DrillOrDrop talked to the Health and Safety Executive about the organisation’s role in keeping workers and local people safe.
Fracking Week in Parliament. The government has said it has no plans to establish a minimum distance between homes and shale gas sites across the country.
In this update on protests about fracking and the onshore oil and gas industry: Demonstrations outside council meetings in Chester and Rotherham; First “lorry surfing” protest at Misson Springs; Lock-on trial verdict; Campaign steps up.
The shale gas company, INEOS, has said some products which may be used at a proposed exploration site could cause cancer or birth defects if “permitted to escape”. They could also lead to mutations and were toxic to plants and animals.
The UK’s biggest shale company has collected hundreds of Facebook posts and tweets, running to more than 3,000 pages, in support of its injunction against anti-fracking protests.
Friends of the Earth has confirmed that its legal challenge to the approval of fracking at Third Energy’s site at Kirby Misperton will now be considered in late November.
The majority investor in the Horse Hill oil well near Gatwick is claiming record UK onshore flow rates. After completing initial flow tests, UK Oil & Gas described the results this morning as “outstanding” and equivalent to rates from the North Sea.
As East Yorkshire councillors prepare to decide on plans by Rathlin Energy for a third oil and gas exploration site, the company declined to comment about allegations that its seismic testing programme damaged local property.
DRILL OR DROP? 