Greenpeace responds to Ineos’ calls for fracking regulations to be weakened

Our chief scientists responds to company's attempts to make fracking easier

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In response to Ineos calling for the government to weaken safety regulations to make fracking easier, Dr Doug Parr, Chief Scientist for Greenpeace UK, said –

“For years those worried about fracking have been assured that our safety regulations are far tougher than those in the US. Now that the industry is having trouble sticking to UK regulations, we’re assured US regulations are perfectly adequate and should be copied here. We do not feel reassured. The first well to be fracked in the UK had to be abandoned because it suffered deformation from tremors of less than 2.3 on the Richter scale. But now Ineos are telling us that tremors many times stronger than this are completely safe. What this really means is that Ineos have discovered that it is impossible to frack safely in the UK, and so they want permission to frack unsafely.”

ENDS

Greenpeace UK Press Office – press.uk@greenpeace.org or 020 7865 8255

Notes –

Ineos’ statement is here –

https://www.ineos.com/news/ineos-group/ineos-calls-for-government-to-end-unworkable-shale-policy-or-end-shale/

A study into the Preese Hall well deformation, recommending the current seismic limit, is here –

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/48330/5055-preese-hall-shale-gas-fracturing-review-and-recomm.pdf

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