Yearly Archive: 2018

Mind the gap!

Today’s saw the publication of the results of the BEIS Wave 27 quarterly opinion tracker. Some of you will remember that after a consultation in which respondents told the BEIS that the questions relating to shale gas were very important, the department immediately removed the questions from the next poll...

A Question of Seismicity

A local resident puts the Oil and Gas Authority to the question. Will answers be forthcoming? Oil and Gas Authority Cc Mark Menzies MP 4 November 2018 Dear Sir/Madam Following the recorded seismic events near Blackpool in 2011, Cuadrilla commissioned a report into the seismicity of Bowland Shale. In the...

Size does matter Francis!

So Mr Egan is having a tough time right now as he gets wheeled in to studio after studio to explain himself about the seismicity which everyone assumes is caused by his company’s fracking operations. Maybe it’s all a bit tiring for him which may explain the  fact that he...

Misinformation Tsar

Natascha Engel was recently appointed as Number 10’s ‘Fracking Tsar’.  Given her questionable credentials (she lost a safe Labour seat which they had held since 1935 to a Conservative anti-fracker, and then worked for Ineos) this has caused some hilarity. However, not so much hilarity as her recent comments in...

Can we trust the traffic light system?

Can we trust the traffic light system?

It seems as though the seismic traffic light system is open to rather more interpretation than one might have imagined from what is touted as being the pinnacle of our gold standard regulations for on-shore fracking. Cuadrilla clearly seem to believe that if a seismic event occurs after injection has...

Amber gamblers

Readers of this blog will have see how Cuadrilla have claimed that the traffic light system only applies if a tremor happens while they are pumping – “If we had been pumping at that time it would have indeed been an amber event we would have confirmed it.” Imagine my...

Can we trust Cuadrilla’s E-Portal?

After last week’s seismic events a lot of attention focussed on Cuadrilla’s e-portal and the decision they took not to show what they call “trailing events” (i.e. events which occur outside of the times they are actually pumping fluid) with a magnitude less than 0.5.  This of course means that...

The Fraxit Dilemma

Francis Egan finds himself in the same bind as Theresa May – whichever way he jumps he may lose In the same way that Brexit-ridden Theresa May cannot find a way out of her Chequers plan omnishambles, Francis Egan too seems to find himself facing a similar intractable problem. After...