The UK Treasury and the country鈥檚 oil and gas regulator chose to give fracking companies a refund of 拢640,000 after the government banned shale gas exploration in England, despite not being required聽to do so.
Exploratory fracking had already ground to a halt ahead of a moratorium imposed in November 2019, as companies struggled to operate without triggering minor earthquakes that alarmed local residents and forced the firms to pause work.
But prime minister Boris Johnson because of the energy price crisis, despite energy experts saying it would make no difference because production would take years to start and gas prices are set internationally. The UK government is expected to publish a new energy security strategy next week.
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When the ban came into force, companies that had already paid oil and gas licensing fees for fracking were out of pocket, but a freedom of information request has revealed that the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA), the UK鈥檚 oil and gas industry regulator, chose to approve applications for a waiver of the fees, with the blessing of the Treasury.
The regulator wasn鈥檛 obliged to approve the applications and pay back the money. However, it may have feared a costly legal challenge: an unnamed fracking firm to have threatened to sue the government over the ban.
A spokesperson for the NSTA said: 鈥淟icensees can apply for a rental waiver to the NSTA. The NSTA considers these requests and not all waivers are granted. Any successful requests require HM Treasury confirmation.鈥�
In total, 拢640,000 was paid back to companies for waivers granted for a period running from 1 April 2019 to 31 March 2021, according to the NSTA鈥檚 response to a request from the website . Cuadrilla, IGas and INEOS were three of the biggest companies with licences for areas believed to have shale gas resources, but the regulator doesn鈥檛 disclose which firms received the money.
The only two remaining fracking wells in the UK, near Blackpool, are due to be sealed with concrete by the end of June, but the NSTA has said that deadline could be extended by a year. The government it 鈥渄id not necessarily make sense鈥� to concrete over the wells, but Cuadrilla, which owns the site, it was still being told to meet the June timeline.
Greenpeace says the fracking industry failed despite the UK government鈥檚 past , and now isn鈥檛 the time to revive the sector. 鈥淭he climate crisis and energy security concerns mean accelerating what is clean, cheap and deliverable, not indulging fantasies of hydrocarbon abundance stemming from a bygone era,鈥� says Doug Parr at the environmental group.
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