Fracking is not viable claim campaigners

One well would have to be drilled and fracked every day for 15 years to produce enough gas to replace just half of future UK gas imports, according to research by environment campaign group Friends of the Earth.

But their figures have been described as poor quality by a body representing the fracking industry.

The analysis, carried out by Professor Calvin Jones, of Cardiff Business School, says to replace just half of estimated UK gas imports will require 6,100 wells.

And the report suggests this figure could rise to as many as 16,500 wells.

The report points out the Government has previously argued that fracking “would provide valuable additional supplies, reducing our reliance on imports”.

Rose Dickinson, Friends of the Earth campaigner, said: “One well would have to be drilled and fracked every day for 15 years to replace just half of our gas imports.

“This would mean an industrialisation of our countryside at a rate nobody has yet fully appreciated and would put many more communities in the firing line .

“With Ineos wanting to drill in Sherwood Forest and elsewhere, we need to know what the scale actually looks like, and it’s not looking good for our countryside.”

Paul Frost, of the Frack Free Mansfield Woodhouse campaign group, said:

“If even 50 per cent of what they are saying was true, to even attempt to make it viable, the industry would devastate our environment. It would cover the area with wells.

Seismic testing has already happened around Warsop Pleasley and Mansfield Woodhouse, Shirebrook and Bolsover areas as well as the Worksop area and into north east Derbyshire and South Yorkshire.

Ken Cronin, Chief Executive of trade body, UK Onshore Oil and Gas, said: “This is a poor quality report, which uses data for well productivity which is years out of date and far lower than the current US average to arrive at artificially high numbers of wells.”