Ineos wants to drill UK fracking test site in attempt to show it is safe
The chemicals and energy company Ineos has offered to drill a shale gas test site in the UK to demonstrate that fracking can be done safely, as the country wrestles with high energy prices.
It comes after the government published its energy strategy, which focuses on securing UK energy supplies, as western countries consider how to reduce reliance on Russian oil and gas.
The Ineos founder and chairman, Sir Jim Ratcliffe, said: “The UK is in the midst of an energy crisis with ever-increasing prices driving people into fuel poverty while giving huge sums of money to oppressive regimes.
“It’s a ridiculous situation with so much gas under our feet and we are today offering to drill a shale test site to show that a competent operator can be trusted to develop the technology safely.”
The government ended support for fracking in England in 2019, and there is also a moratorium in Scotland and Wales.
In February, more than a decade of efforts to develop fracking for shale gas seemed to be over with the decision to seal the only two horizontal drilled wells in Lancashire.
However, with the energy crisis, there has been pressure to look again at the controversial gas source, and the order to permanently seal the wells has been suspended.
The government has also commissioned a review into the science around fracking, which could pave the way to lifting the current moratorium on the process brought in over the tremors it caused.
However, the business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, has warned that fracking would take years of exploration and development to produce commercial levels of gas.
Ineos said the moratorium was imposed because the “science behind shale was totally ignored and politicians bowed to an extreme vocal minority”.
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