The fracking goldmine firm can’t drill for

FRaCKING firm Cuadrilla says it has found a huge reserve of natural gas underneath Lancashire – but red tape could prevent it from ever being extracted.

a test at the firm’s Preston New Road exploration site near Blackpool confirmed there is a ‘rich reservoir’ of easily recoverable gas there.

But bosses claimed that strict regulations are ruining their industry with limits on drilling.

Work must be paused if it causes tremors in the ground – even if these are so small they pass unnoticed by anyone above ground.

The company has written to its regulator, the Oil and Gas authority (OGa), to call for a review of the rules. It has said it will not start work again until it has heard back.

Hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, involves pumping a mixture of water, sand and chemicals into the ground at high pressure to release oil or gas trapped in shale rock by cracking it open.

Critics say it is bad for the environment and causes earthquakes.

at present, work must be paused in the UK if it causes tremors above 0.5-magnitude – but fracking supporters say this seismic activity is so minor that it could be triggered by a passing bus. Cuadrilla had to pause work several times late last year after tremors exceeded the 0.5 limit. The company says it has not been able to complete part of the fracking process – injecting sand after water has been pumped in – without breaching the threshold.

Chief executive Francis Egan called for the limit to be raised but did not say where he wants the tremor level to be set.

‘all we ask now is that we are treated fairly, with comparable seismic and ground vibration levels to similar industries in Lancashire and elsewhere in the UK,’ he said.

The current limit was imposed after fracking caused minor earthquakes at a different Cuadrilla site in Blackpool in 2011.

Dr Brian Baptie and Dr Ben Edwards, advisers to the OGa, have previously said it is safe to treble the magnitude to 1.5 because the risk of harm is ‘vanishingly small’.

Earlier this week Sir Jim Ratcliffe, Britain’s richest man and chairman of chemicals firm Ineos, urged regulators to allow earthquakes of up to magnitude 4.0 – said to feel like a large lorry passing by.

‘It’s ridiculous we’re not allowed to do the science,’ he said. ‘They’ve just picked stupid levels. If you drop your handbag on the floor there’s some seismicity.’

However, energy minister Claire Perry and the OGa have said there are no plans to alter the rules.