UK to start fracking again after 5 years, spurring SA’s massive shale endowment?

South Africa’s incredible natural shale gas endowment – and its treacle-like bureaucracy – is highlighted by one of the UK’s big stories of the moment. After a five year moratorium, British exploitation of its shale gas is to begin again after a local company was yesterday given the green light to frack a Yorkshire well. The fracking benefits for the British economy are well documented with the UK’s shale gas reserves of 26 tcf sufficient to meet nine years of consumption. South Africa, which has an economy one eighth the size of the UK’s, has 15 times higher shale gas reserves. That gives SA 120 times the British incentive to kick its fracking into gear. If you thought education was expensive, try ignorance. – Alec Hogg  

By Kelly Gilblom

(Bloomberg) — Third Energy U.K. Gas Ltd. was given the go-ahead to frack an existing U.K. natural gas well, overcoming last-minute protests and reviving a practice not used in Britain for five years.

North Yorkshire County Council on Monday approved a proposal by Third Energy to create five fractures in a vertical gas well. The council’s planning committee voted by a margin of seven to four in favor of the plan after a two-day meeting that drew heated opposition.

Anti-fracking protesters demonstrate outside County Hall in Preston, Britain June 23, 2015. Lancashire County Council is debating an application by shale gas firm Cuadrilla Resources to frack on the Fylde coast, local media reported. REUTERS/Phil Noble
Anti-fracking protesters demonstrate outside County Hall in Preston, Britain June 23, 2015. Lancashire County Council is debating an application by shale gas firm Cuadrilla Resources to frack on the Fylde coast, local media reported. REUTERS/Phil Noble

Third Energy’s Chief Executive Officer Rasik Valand said the company viewed the approval as a “huge responsibility” rather than a victory, according to a statement on its website. “We will have to deliver on our commitment, made to the committee and to the people of Ryedale, to undertake this operation safely and without impacting on the local environment.”

The decision comes in the middle of a national debate about fracking, gas supply, climate change and energy security. Plunging domestic production has caused Prime Minister David Cameron’s government to support the controversial practice to shore up energy supplies. Fracking caused tremors in the U.K. in 2011 after Cuadrilla Resources Ltd. unknowingly drilled into an area with a fault. A temporary moratorium was put in place as the government sought to address concern the technique is unsafe.

Read also: SA shale gas exploration gets green light, kicks off in next financial year

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, uses water, sand and chemicals to blast underground rock to release trapped fuel.

The U.K. may have as much as 26 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable shale gas, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said in 2013, or about nine years of the nation’s gas consumption. It should become clearer whether other companies will be able to resume fracking in the U.K. by the end of the year.

Third Energy’s gas application, filed in June 2015, requested permission to fracture an extension of a well drilled in 2013 in the northern English countryside and carry out associated clean-up and monitoring activities. The company estimates the fracking will be completed within eight weeks and says the purpose is to flow test gas to help determine the volume of reserves in the Bowland Shale.

Read also: Shell’s plans to “withdraw” from Karoo shale gas is a “Trojan Horse”

An application by Cuadrilla to drill eight exploratory wells in northern England has been under consideration by local officials for three years and will be decided on by Secretary of State for Communities Greg Clark by July 4. Ineos Group, the U.K.’s largest closely held company by sales, expects fracking in the country within two years and estimates seismic surveying will be completed in about six months. IGas Energy Plc is looking at existing data on exploration blocks awarded to it by the U.K. government to determine areas rich in shale gas deposits.

Units of Engie SA and Total SA also have interests in “unconventional” oil and gas exploration blocks in the U.K., according to government filings.

Approval of Third Energy’s application will be “a good thing for industry,” Tom Pickering, operations director at Ineos Shale, said in an interview before the decision. “Seeing those small steps is crucial to just winning public respect.”

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