The billionaire hoping to become Britain’s biggest fracker has said banning shale gas would cement the decline of UK manufacturing, as he brushed off environmental concerns about the hotly disputed energy source. Speaking as his petrochemicals firm Ineos took delivery of the first ever shipment of shale gas from the US, Jim Ratcliffe addressed Labour’s announcement that it would ban fracking, which he insists could create jobs in some of the party’s former industrial heartlands. Asked about the impact fracking could have, Ratcliffe said: “I’m from the north and there are parts of the north that are not happy places.” He added that some towns that once thrived on industries such as coal or steel were now “a bit grim”.
Guardian 27th Sept 2016 read more »
George Monbiot: Do they understand what they have signed? Plainly they do not. Governments such as ours, now ratifying the Paris agreement on climate change, haven’t the faintest idea what it means – either that or they have no intention of honouring it. For the first time we can see the numbers on which the agreement depends, and their logic is inescapable. Governments can either meet their international commitments or allow the prospecting and development of new fossil fuel reserves. They cannot do both. The Paris agreement, struck by 200 nations in December, pledged to hold “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2C above pre-industrial levels”, and aspired to limit it to 1.5C. So what does this mean? Thanks to a report by Oil Change International, we can now answer this question with a degree of precision. Using the industry’s own figures, it shows that burning the oil, gas and coal in the fields and mines that is already either in production or being developed, is likely to take the global temperature rise beyond 2C. And even if all coal mining were to be shut down today, the oil and gas lined up so far would take it past 1.5C. The notion that we can open any new reserves, whether by fracking for gas, drilling for oil or digging for coal, without scuppering the Paris commitments is simply untenable.
Guardian 27th Sept 2016 read more »
The first shipment of US shale gas has arrived in Scotland amid a fierce debate about the future of fracking in the UK. A tanker carrying 27,500m3 of ethane from US shale fields has reached Grangemouth, the site of the petrochemicals plant owned by Ineos. The tanker was prevented from docking by high winds and is now anchored outside the port in the Forth estuary. Ineos said the gas would secure the future of the plant’s workforce.
BBC 28th Sept 2016 read more »
Times 28th Sept 2016 read more »
FT 27th Sept 2016 read more »
Despite the thousands of Scottish jobs the shipments will secure and the £8 million the Scottish government has invested in the development, not a single Scottish minister attended the arrival ceremony. Sources at Ineos, which owns the Grangemouth plant, said all the relevant ministers had been invited but a Scottish government spokesman said they were too busy to attend. The divide between Ineos and the Scottish government centres on the latter’s decision to impose a moratorium on all fracking in Scotland. This will last until at least next year, and possibly longer.
Times 28th Sept 2016 read more »
Telegraph 27th Sept 2016 read more »
We are now about to use a system of gas extraction that is banned in Scotland under a moratorium because it is alleged to cause water pollution and to trigger earthquakes. Neither of these stands up to scrutiny. But that is not the point. The government considers it a potential risk and is happy for that risk to be borne by the citizens of the United States rather than by us. Hardly surprising, then, that one of Scotland’s leading geological experts, Rebecca Lunn of Strathclyde University, last year described the government’s position as “uninformed . . . ethically appalling . . . passing the buck”. The moratorium is now 20 months old, which is a long time in which to examine the evidence, not least because the evidence has been available from America for the past decade, during which every environmental group has challenged the fracking industry on its science without halting its progress.
Times 28th Sept 2016 read more »
Shale gas is good for the economy. Government should help promote its extraction.
Times 28th Sept 2016 read more »
Fracking for shale gas in the UK is the only way to arrest the collapse in British manufacturing, billionaire industrialist Jim Ratcliffe has claimed. Mr Ratcliffe, the founder of petrochemicals giant Ineos, wants to explore for shale gas across vast swathes of the UK and yesterday warned that failure to get fracking would see Britain relegated to a “fragile” service economy. Speaking a day after the Labour Party vowed to ban the controversial practice, Mr Ratcliffe appeared to appeal for working class support as he claimed shale could transform the “industrial heartlands” of the UK and revive parts of the North he said were currently “a bit grim”.
Telegraph 27th Sept 2016 read more »
The National 28th Sept 2016 read more »
While Ratcliffe concedes accidents will sometimes happen, he says fracking can be carried out safely and insists it is basic economics that it will herald cheap energy for the UK. He blames a “vocal minority” for leading opposition and says he hopes “common sense will prevail”, insisting there is “no science behind the arguments” they are making. But for his critics, such as Greenpeace, it is Ineos’s arguments that don’t stack up. Last week, the UK advertising watchdog ruled in favour of the environmental group’s assertion that most experts agree fracking won’t cut energy bills. “Ineos’s publicity stunt is riddled with overblown and outdated claims about the benefits of fr acking,” Hannah Martin of Greenpeace says. While the UK Government has so far maintained support for fracking, the SNP has imposed a moratorium on fracking in Scotland – meaning Ineos cannot explore licences near Grangemouth itself – and snubbed yesterday’s event, while the UK Labour Party on Monday pledged to outlaw fracking if it wins power. When it comes to winning the argument on the merits of domestic shale gas, it seems Ratcliffe may find headwinds that are rather harder to overcome.
Telegraph 27th Sept 2016 read more »
The boss of petrochemicals giant Ineos has come under fire for comparing the environmental damage caused by fracking to getting “a puncture in your car”, as the first shipment of shale gas arrived in the UK from the US. The comments by Jim Ratcliffe, the founder and chairman of Ineos, were described as “astounding” and “cavalier” by environmental groups and politicians, who said fracking could contaminate groundwater supplies and do unrepairable damage to the natural world.
The i 27th Sept 2016 read more »
Herald 28th Sept 2016 read more »
BILLIONAIRE Ineos chief Jim Ratcliffe has challenged Nicola Sturgeon to cross the Atlantic to witness the benefits of fracking as the first ever shipment of US shale gas arrived in Scotland. The chairman and founder of the chemicals giant, which owns the Grangemouth industrial complex, also suggested the SNP is pandering to a “vocal minority” by refusing to back his plans to begin fracking in the central belt and expressed “disappointment” at SNP ministers for snubbing his celebration of a project he said would secure 10,000 jobs. The first of what will become weekly shipments of shale gas, extracted in Pennsylvania, arrived in the Firth of Forth yesterday and the industrialist insisted fracking had prevented Grangemouth, which is vital to the Scottish economy and infrastructure, from closing down.
Herald 28th Sept 2016 read more »
AN SNP MP has admitted that he will continue to oppose fracking even if research commissioned by Nicola Sturgeon proves the controversial gas extraction technique to be entirely safe. Martyn Day will today witness the first ever shipment of fracked gas from US shale fields arrive in Scotland when a huge purpose built ship docks at chemical giant Ineos’s Grangemouth industrial plant, the largest employer in his Linlithgow and East Falkirk constituency. While SNP ministers are to snub the event and protestors are expected at the site, Mr Day will attend and said he welcomed the arrival of fracking gas from America because the new supply line, which will ensure regular deliveries for years to come, will secure “real jobs” in the area. But he i nsisted he will continue to oppose the method in Scotland, rejecting a claim from Jim Ratcliffe, the billionaire Ineos boss who wants to establish a fracking industry across the central belt, that welcoming overseas imports of shale gas while opposing it at home amounted to hypocrisy.
Herald 27th Sept 2016 read more »
OUR oil industry is clinging on to its presence in the North Sea in the hope that prices will rise and the glory days of sumptuous profits will return. Our oil billionaires no doubt dream of their past successes as they lounge in their mansions or pontificate on issues of national identity. The Chancellor of the Exchequer would gasp a sigh of relief if another £330 billion-plus oil tax windfall came his way. But it’s all a sad oil pipe dream. The game is almost up. The special relationship we, allegedly, have with the US, when they are not shunting us to the back of the trade deal queue, has been to no purpose. In fact the opposite is the case. One of the primary reasons for the loss of 120,000 North Sea-related jobs is the squalid fer vour in the US to make a fast buck out of exploiting their oil and gas shale beds. This impact of the US shale gas rush on oil prices cannot be overstated. The resultant low oil price has brought our North Sea industry to its knees. Now, to add insult to injury, we see the totally unacceptable spectacle of shipload after shipload of shale gas in the form of ethane about to be landed in the UK and Europe from America. Ineos, the company awarded the majority of licences for a possible UK onshore fracking frenzy, believes its investment will bring US shale gas economics to Europe. Ineos has long planned for shale gas to be brought across oceans in ships so we can enjoy the fruits of this US-inspired new economics. Why on earth has the UK Government accepted this situation? Are they happy for another 200,000 North Sea related jobs to disappear to the detriment of Scotland? More North Sea jobs will disappear and, more importantly, untold social damage will be inflicted on countries which try to copy the US fracking gamble, unless a halt is called to onshore fracking.
The National 28th Sept 2016 read more »
Bill McKibben, the US environmentalist who is one of the world’s foremost authors and activists on issues of global warming, does not mince his words. “We have to check the power of the fossil fuel industry,” he says. “It’s going to take an immense amount of work, but if we don’t win, then there won’t be any future.” In an interview with Climate News Network, McKibben said that oil majors such as ExxonMobil and Shell show no signs of rethinking their policies or re-ordering their activities. “They are digging deeper and choosing to ignore what’s going on,” he warned. “Recent work by investigative journalists shows that ExxonMobil knew all about climate change and its effects on the world 40 years ago.
Climate News Network 28th Sept 2016 read more »