Fracking in the United Kingdom facts for kids
Fracking in the United Kingdom started in the late 1970s with fracturing of the conventional oil and gas fields near the North Sea. It was used in about 200 British onshore oil and gas wells from the early 1980s. The technique attracted attention after licences use were awarded for onshore shale gas exploration in 2008. The topic received considerable public debate on environmental grounds, with a 2019 high court ruling ultimately banning the process. The two remaining high-volume fracturing wells were supposed to be plugged and decommissioned in 2022.
Although fracking is often used synonymously to refer to shale gas and other unconventional oil and gas sources, it is not always correct to associate it with unconventional gas.
Contents
History
The first experimental use of hydraulic fracturing in the world was in 1947, and the first commercially successful applications of hydraulic fracturing were in 1949 in the United States. There has been significant fracking in the US, where it has allowed electricity to be produced using gas rather than coal, halving the associated CO2 emissions.
Offshore
In the United Kingdom, the first hydraulic fracturing of an oil well was carried out shortly after discovery of the West Sole field in the North Sea in 1965. After the industry started to use intermediate and high-strength proppants in the late 1970s, hydraulic fracturing became a common technique in the North Sea oil and gas wells. The first hydraulic fracturing from ship was conducted in the British Southern North Sea in 1980, with massive or high volume hydraulic fracturing used from 1984 onwards.
Onshore
An estimated 200 conventional onshore wells have been subject to low volume hydraulic fracturing; around 10% of all onshore wells in the United Kingdom, including Wytch Farm, which is the largest onshore conventional oil field in western Europe. From 1977 until 1994, a hot dry rock geothermal energy experiment was conducted in the Carnmenellis granite of Cornwall. During that experiment, three geothermal wells with depth of 2.6 kilometres (1.6 mi) were hydraulically fractured "to research the hydraulic stimulation of fracture networks at temperatures below 100 °C (212 °F)".
The surge of public interest in high-volume hydraulic fracturing in the UK can be traced to 2008, when Cuadrilla Resources was granted a petroleum exploration and development licence in the 13th onshore licensing round for unconventional shale gas exploration along the coast of Lancashire. The company's first and only high-volume hydraulic fracturing job was performed in March 2011, near Blackpool, Lancashire. Cuadrilla halted operations in May 2011 at their Lancashire drilling site due to seismic activity damaging the casing in the production zone. On 2 November 2019, the UK government imposed a moratorium on fracking in England. Scotland and Wales have moratoria in place against hydraulic fracturing.
In late May 2011, the first UK exploration for shale gas using high-volume hydraulic fracturing was suspended at Preese Hall at Weeton in Lancashire after the process triggered two minor earthquakes. The larger of the earthquakes caused minor deformation of the wellbore and was strong enough to be felt. The report of 2012 by the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering concluded that earthquake risk was minimal, and recommended the process be given nationwide clearance, although it highlighted certain concerns which led to changes in regulations.
In January 2014, the European Commission issued a set of recommendations on the minimum principles for the exploration and production of hydrocarbons from shale formations using high-volume hydraulic fracturing.
A 2016 government report on the UK shale gas sector was finally made available in 2019 after a three year legal battle to make it public, but with three-quarters of its pages blacked out. The unredacted paragraphs said that the government was “undertaking crucial work on communications to increase public acceptability of shale.” In March 2019, the High Court found the UK government's policy was unlawful and failed to consider the climate impact of shale gas extraction.
In November 2019 the government announced "an indefinite suspension" to fracking, after a report by the Oil and Gas Authority (OGA) said it was not possible to predict the probability or size of tremors caused by the practice. Business Secretary Andrea Leadsom said that the suspension might be temporary - imposed "until and unless" extraction is proved safe. As of February 2022, the two Cuadrilla wells in Lancashire, which had been out of operation since the ban, were supposed to finally be plugged and decommissioned. By mid March and 4 weeks into the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine the CEO of Cuadrilla asked the government to keep the wells open for energy security.
Process
Hydraulic fracturing is a well-stimulation technique in which rock is fractured by a hydraulically pressurized fluid. This process is also known as 'fracking'. Hydraulic fracturing requires a borehole to be drilled to target depth in the reservoir. For oil and gas production, hydraulically fractured wells can be horizontal or vertical, while the reservoir can be conventional or unconventional. After the well has been drilled, lined, and geophysically logged, the rock can be hydraulically fractured.
Environmental impact
The environmental risks of hydraulic fracturing in conventional and unconventional wells: ground water contamination, surface water contamination, releases to air, water resource depletion, traffic, land take, noise, visual impact and seismicity.
Environmental impact assessments cover a wide range of concerns, including habitat damage, effect on wildlife, traffic, noise, lighting, and air pollution. This reference shows one example. These are presented in less detail in a ' Non Technical Summary'.
According to Professor Mair of the Royal Society, the causation of earthquakes with any significant impact or fractures reaching and contaminating drinking water, were very low risk" if adequate regulations are in place.
A report from AMEC in December 2013 covers many of the environmental issues that would arise were the shale gas industry to become highly developed.
The British Geological Survey are involved with environmental monitoring.
In October 2014, EASAC stated that: "Overall, in Europe more than 1000 horizontal wells and several thousand hydraulic fracturing jobs have been executed in recent decades. None of these operations are known to have resulted in safety or environmental problems".
In October 2016, Amec Foster Wheeler Infrastructure Ltd (AFWI) compared the environmental impacts and risks of unconventional high volume hydraulic fracturing with conventional low volume hydraulic fracturing. The study found that volume of fluid injected and flowback were the only significant differences between conventional low volume and unconventional high volume hydraulic fracturing and that the impacts and risks for high volume hydraulic fracturing scaled up for land take, traffic, surface water contamination and water resource depletion.
Air
In February 2016, a study by the ReFINE consortium funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), Shell, Chevron, Ineos and Centrica, found "substantial increases over the baseline""in local air quality pollutants", during the short-duration high-traffic phase which includes the delivery of hydraulic fracturing equipment, proppant, water, as well as the removal of flowback from the site. According to ReFiNE, these short-duration increases have the potential to breach local air quality standards. The industry group UKOOG criticised the ReFiNE study for failing to take into account that water for hydraulic fracturing fluid might be brought in by pipeline, instead of being transported by truck.
In October 2016, Amec Foster Wheeler Infrastructure Ltd stated that the overall environmental impacts from low volume hydraulic fracturing to local air quality and global warming are low. Local air quality is impacted by dust and SO2 and NOx emissions "from equipment and vehicles used to transport, pressurise and injection fracturing fluids, and process flowback", while "Emissions of CO2 from the equipment used to pressurise and injection fracturing fluids, and process flowback." contributes to global warming.
Water
The RAE report stated, "Many claims of contaminated water wells due to shale gas extraction have been made. None has shown evidence of chemicals found in hydraulic fracturing fluids". The Environment Agency definitions of groundwater and aquifer are here.
In January 2015, the British Geological Survey released national baseline methane levels, which showed a wide range of readings Poor surface well sealing, which allows methane to leak, methane was identified in the Royal Academy of Engineering report as a risk to groundwater. This was incorporated into the Infrastructure Act 2015 with a requirement that monitoring takes place 12 months before fracturing.
The Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM) have been involved with evaluating the potential water impacts of hydraulic fracturing.
Groundwater contamination
Both low and high volume hydraulic fracturing "involve storing and injecting large quantities of chemicals". Any surface spill therefore has "the potential to penetrate groundwater". The likelihood of low volume and high volume hydraulic fracturing contaminating groundwater by surface spills of stored chemicals is rare, however the risk and consequences are moderate. To mitigate the risk, the Environment Agency requires chemical and fluid proof well pads.
The 2012 joint Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering report indicated that the distances between potable water supplies and fractured formation in various US shale plays is large, meaning the risk of contamination is very small. No cases of pollution by this route have been identified.
Another 2013 paper from ReFine indicated the potential for surface gas leaks from abandoned wells
UK and US water differences
Treated mains water is the norm in the UK, and standards are required by legislation to be high. As such any pollution would have to be removed by the water companies by law. Private water wells are rare, around 62,000 households, out of 23.4 million households or 2.6%. In rural areas of the US, private wells are common (15%), and small communities are served by investor-owned utilities, or community schemes. UK households would therefore be expected to be less at risk than those in the US.
In the US, baseline methane measurements were not made at the start of the shale gas boom, meaning that it became difficult to prove whether a gas problem was due to a leaking well, or was naturally occurring.
Water use
Water use is regulated by the EA (England), the SEPA (Scotland), the NIEA (Northern Ireland) and NRW (Wales) to ensure environmental needs are not compromised. Water companies assess how much water is available, before providing it to operators. The amount of water abstracted nationally is at around 9.4 billion cubic metres. In 2015, the EA indicated that water usage at a peak level would be 0.1% of national use and hydraulic fracturing may use up to "30 million litres per well". Drier areas, such as south-east England, are concerned about the impact of hydraulic fracturing on water supplies.
Seismicity
As of August 2016, there have been two cases in the United Kingdom of fault reactivation by hydraulic fracturing that caused induced seismicity strong enough to be felt by humans at the surface: both in Lancashire (M 2.3 and M 1.5).
In December 2015, the Centre for Research into Earth Energy Systems (CeREES) at Durham University published the first research of its kind, prior to "planned shale gas and oil exploitation", in order to establish a baseline for anthropogenic, induced seismic events in the UK.
In October 2018, more earthquakes were recorded in Lancashire including two tremors of 0.8 magnitude which called the Energy firm Cuadrilla to call a temporary halt on the drilling operations.
Public health
If the Minerals Planning Authority determine that public health will be significantly impacted, the Director of Public health is consulted so that a "health impact assessment" can be prepared. The Environment Agency then uses the health impact assessment when considering the "potential health effects" during their "permit determination"
In 2014, Public Health England reviewed the "available evidence on issues including air quality, radon gas, naturally occurring radioactive materials, water contamination and waste water. They concluded that the risks to public health from exposure to emissions from shale gas extraction are low if operations are properly run and regulated." Public Health England's Dr John Harrison, Director for Radiation, Chemical and Environmental Hazards, stated that: "Where potential risks have been identified in other countries, the reported problems are typically due to operational failure. Good on-site management and appropriate regulation of all aspects of exploratory drilling, gas capture as well as the use and storage of hydraulic fracturing fluid is essential to minimise the risks to the environment and health."
In 2015 the health charity Medact published a paper written by two public health specialists called 'Health & Fracking - The impacts and opportunity costs', which reviewed health impacts of hydraulic fracturing and suggested a moratorium until a more detailed health and environmental impact assessment could be completed. UKOOG criticised Medact's understanding of UK regulations and said they had not declared that one of its consultants, who was standing for parliament in the 2015 general election, had a conflict of interest. The Times journalist Ben Webster also criticised Medact for not declaring one of their consultant's conflict of interest and reported that the Medact director had not realised that this consultant was also an anti-fracking candidate. MedAct published a response to these criticisms.
The content of the Medact Report 2015 was referred to by many objectors in the June 2015 Public reports pack for the Lancashire County Council Development Control Committee. Lancashire County Council were uncertain how much weight to attach to the Medact report due to "questions from some quarters" about the objectivity of the report based on association of two its contributors with campaigns relating to shale gas.
In 2016, Medact released an updated public health report, citing health risks from shale gas development and calling upon the government to "abandon its shale gas plans".
The debate
Hydraulic fracturing, "or 'fracking' as it has become commonly known, is a big issue for local authorities and communities across the country" and has become part of the Climate Change debate.
Anti-fracking campaigners say that there are various problems associated with the process including pressure on local transport infrastructure, air and water pollution, the amounts of water used, and potential economic damage to agricultural, food production and tourism industries.
Pro-fracking campaigners say the "fracking industry" "could bring a boost to jobs and the economy" and that "shale gas has a pivotal role to play in the region's future success" and "would act as a catalyst to bring the vital investment necessary to secure existing industries and develop new ones."
See also
- Unconventional (oil & gas) reservoir
- Cost of electricity by source
- Oil and gas industry in the United Kingdom
- Refracktion, an environmental organisation
