Shale gas rush in pipeline

HUGE SWATHES of Fife and Central Scotland could be given over to controversial shale gas extraction.

Rich deposits are thought to exist deep beneath the regions, with many of the likely areas for exploration once home to a vibrant coal mining industry.

The lifting of the UK Government’s temporary ban on hydraulic fracturing — imposed after a site near Blackpool was linked to minor earthquakes — has sparked speculation of a gas rush.

Despite the concerns of environmental groups, there is the belief that the technique known as “fracking” could massively decrease the UK’s reliance on foreign energy and drive down energy prices.

Scots firms are already providing the expertise, technology and machinery to drive the US boom and there is the belief that firms in the oil and gas industry in Aberdeen may also be able to diversify into new fields.

The exact distribution of shale gas reserves within Scotland remains uncertain but the British Geological Survey has described the gas as “abundant”.

It is investigating the location of reserves on behalf of the Department of Energy and Climate Change and a much-anticipated report is to be released in the new year.

Extensive licences are already in place for unconventional gas exploration for significant areas of land between Falkirk and Kirkcaldy and between Glenrothes and Anstruther.

The majority of those existing licences are held by Australian firm Dart Energy, which has extracted coal bed methane (CBM) from a site at Airth near Falkirk since the early 1990s.

It plans to sink as many as 22 1000-metre wells on the site as it develops its CBM operation, but does not use fracking and all its wells at Airth were designed in such a way that they cannot be fracked.

Further Scots licences are, however, expected to be awarded by the Department of Energy and Climate Change as the picture becomes clearer, and they could open up much of Fife and large parts of Central Scotland to exploration and, potentially, to fracking.

Mid Scotland and Fife MSP Murdo Fraser said: “Shale gas has the potential to revitalise both the Scottish engineering sector and local economies.

“More importantly its extraction can provide a secure supply of gas that will lower costs to the consumer and help reduce fuel poverty.”

The Glasgow-based Weir Group PLC (Weir) occupies a leading position as an engineering solutions provider to the shale oil and gas markets of North America.

Chief executive Keith Cochrane said: “Exploration for shale gas in the UK can contribute in the next decade to the role of gas as a cleaner transition fossil fuel.

“Properly regulated development, arrived at through proper consultation with local communities, can stimulate employment and growth, leveraging the UK’s well established offshore oil and gas skills and technology base, supply chain and research capabilities.”