Tory MPs urge new fracking ‘with the vigour of a war effort’
FRACKING was ended in Britain on a “false pretext” and should be resumed with “the vigour of a national war effort”, Conservative MPs said last night, as an official report cast doubt on evidence cited by ministers to justify the ban.
Days after Boris Johnson warned that Europe was “addicted” to Russian oil and gas, it has emerged that a report commissioned by a UK regulator described some of the tremors used to justify the moratorium on shale gas exploration in Britain as “almost imperceptible”.
The larger tremors cited by ministers when they announced the ban in 2019 affected just tens of buildings with, at the most, “slight non-structural damage”, according to a report commissioned by the Oil and Gas Authority (OGA) and finalised after the moratorium was put in place.
The disclosure comes after the Prime Minister acknowledged that there was “merit” in the idea of the temporary “use of hydrocarbons in this country” after MPs pressed him to “look again at fracking”. Sources insisted that he had not changed his mind on the issue, having pushed back against a suggestion by Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Brexit Opportunities Minister, that the ban should be reversed.
The 2019 moratorium was announced by Andrea Leadsom, the then business secretary, in November of that year “on the basis of the disturbance caused to residents living near Cuadrilla’s Preston New Road site in Lancashire” and the “latest scientific analysis” for the OGA.
But several other reports, published months later without fanfare on the OGA’s website, prompted calls last night for the decision to be reversed.
Last night, Steve Baker, the former Brexit minister, said the invasion of Ukraine was possible only becasue Europe is addicted to Russian gas.
He added: “Boris should immediately stop the concreting in of current shale wells and go for gas with all the vigour of a national war effort, which this very nearly is. Our civilisation may depend upon it.”
The “disturbance” cited by ministers in November 2019 appeared to refer to a magnitude 2.9 tremor which led to the suspension of operations at the Preston New Road site in August 2019.
But one of the reports published by the OGA states that the effect equated to some 50 buildings experiencing “damage state one” (DS1) , the lowest of five damage states, which involves either “no structural damage” or “slight nonstructural damage which is manifested through hairline cracks in walls and damage to plaster”.
The report, a final version of which was submitted to the OGA in July 2020, adds that the British Geological Survey “assigned the event as intensity VI [“slightly damaging”] due, in part at least, to some reports of minor cosmetic damage (DS1).”
A Government spokesman said: “Fracking would have no effect on domestic energy prices in the near term. To boost energy security, we need to move away from expensive fossil fuels and generate more cheap, clean power in the UK.”