andrew argo

It is hard not to be impressed by the scale of the project undertaken by INEOS – and attracted by the potential economic benefits.

It is a monumental vote of confidence in a site eloquently described by company chairman Jim Ratcliffe as “the heartbeat of the Scottish economy.”

That beating heart can grow stronger for the country’s benefit if shale gas can be viably harvested nearer home – like in the Forth Estuary and off the Fife coast.

The Scottish Government is uneasy about that possibility owing to strongly expressed concerns about the potential harm fracking may cause to the environment.

Fracking did leave scars on the landscape in parts of the United States and Australia but there is evidence that the industry learned lessons from these episodes.

It has certainly been productively developed in the United States where it has fuelled a revival of the manufacturing industry - a vital wheel in any nation’s economic machine.

Mr Ratcliffe understood the sensitivity of the issue for the Scottish Government and accepted the environmental path is one on which it should tread warily.

But, he argued, should it not at least take a few steps on the path by allowing exploratory tests at sites to see if Scotland has reserves of shale gas that are, in his word, “producible.”

The Scottish Government’s moratorium does not make that possible, and the Labour and Green Parties are even more opposed.

Is that the correct approach? INEOS certainly doesn’t think so and more people are coming round to that view.

One interesting contribution to the debate came from the GMB Union.

Its regional secretary Gary Smith stated: “Hundreds of millions have been invested in Grangemouth. Tens of thousands of jobs depend on the site – calling for imported fracked gas to be stopped is campaigning for mass unemployment in central Scotland.”

Is that not a reason to at least have trials to see if Scotland can have its own shale gas industry?