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.
An oil exploration well in one of the most sensitive parts of the country has lacked scrutiny because of legal loopholes.
The government has confirmed that no guarantor is required to underwrite Third Energy’s commitments to frack one well a year in Ryedale, North Yorkshire, until 2022.
The shale gas industry was warned today it must tackle the problem of who pays for decommissioning if the operator goes out of business.
Owners of fracking sites may be liable for the clean-up if project backers go out of business, MPs said in a report published today.
A Conservative MP said this evening he was disappointed with the response of senior civil servants to his questions on the decommissioning of shale gas wells.
The last excavator was moved off Rathlin Energy’s Crawberry Hill drilling site in East Yorkshire this afternoon. All the cabins have now gone and a small tarmac access to the field is all that remains of the site, where a well was sunk in 2013.
DRILL OR DROP? 