Cuadrilla submits new fracking plans and hails ‘year of progress’
ONE of the key players in the nascent fracking industry has lodged a fresh planning application to frack in Lancashire.
Cuadrilla Resources has submitted plans to drill, frack and test the flow of gas at Roseacre Wood north of Kirkham.
Last month it submitted a similar application for a site at Little Plumpton, west of Kirkham. The company hopes to start work on site in the autumn, subject to planning approval.
The applications come as the group filed annual figures for the year to the end of December, 2013. During the period the group had sales of £3.4m, up from £612,000 and made a pre-tax loss of £8.8m, down from £29.2m.
It is still the only firm to have carried out fracking, albeit under test conditions. The process uses water and chemicals to release gas by fracturing of the shale bed. Environmentalists argue this can cause water and air pollution and Cuadrilla’s test fracking in 2011 was linked to two earthquakes near Blackpool. This led to a moratorium while the Government assessed the safety of the technique.
Chief executive Francis Egan described 2013 as a “year of progress” with British Gas owner Centrica buying into the firm’s Lancashire licence in a deal worth £150m. It also completed a horizontal exploration well for shale oil in Sussex which attracted significant protests from environmentalists.
Regarding these protests Mr Egan said: “We remain confident that as stakeholders and the public better understand the proposals and need for shale gas exploration and extraction in the UK, the potential economic and environmental benefits this can offer and how the industry and regulators manage risk, such operations will attract increasing support.”
He added: “We are also maintaining our exploration interests in the Netherlands and Poland. The Dutch Government has commissioned a comprehensive strategic environmental assessment, following which it is hoped we will be able to apply for permission to commence exploration operation. In Poland we are continuing to analyse seismic data we acquired in 2012-13.”
Staffordshire-based Cuadrilla is a joint venture between private equity firm Riverstone and the Australian engineering group AJ Lucas. They each have 41%, with management holding the balance
