Infantile SNP giving fracking no backing

THE Dragon-class tanker laden with American shale gas, anchored in the Forth off Grangemouth, ought to herald a bright new future for Scotland’s petrochemical sector. Normally, the quayside would be crammed with SNP dignitaries bedecked in yellow hi-viz and keen to bask in the reflected glory...

But Jim Ratcliffe, boss of Ineos – a firm that generates perhaps as much of 5 per cent of Scotland’s gross domestic product – was left alone to fulminate at the infantile attitude of the SNP.

It has imposed a Scottish moratorium on fracking, the process which extracts shale gas from deep underground. That has forced Ineos to transport ethane – the key raw material for its Grangemouth complex – across the wide Atlantic.

Today, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is due to reopen the mothballed Dalzell steel plant in Motherwell. That is good news – but isn’t it intriguing that Miss Sturgeon can make time for steel but not a sunrise industry such as fracking? Of course, the SNP moratorium is a mere sop to the flat-earthers within party ranks and is based on little more then prejudice and a few discredited YouTube videos.

Fracking is a mature industry in the United States. Even Mr Ratcliffe admits there have been some environmental errors – but oil, at one time the SNP’s independence bankroll, has a far worse record.

Scotland needs investment to create jobs and prosperity. It needs an innovative, forward-looking government, not one crippled by pseudo science and halfbaked fears.