Flaring only takes place during the initial flow test stage. Cuadrilla uses an enclosed flare which conceals the flare flame.

It is no secret that we asked the OGA to review the TLS in December 2018 following hydraulic fracturing operations and that remains a high priority for us and other UK shale operators. The upper operating limit, set at just 0.5 on the Richter scale, was purposefully positioned at an extremely conservative level, far below anything that can be felt at surface, much less cause any damage to people or property. The Government was very clear at the time about the intention to review this limit as operational experience and data became available. Didn’t you cause earthquakes when hydraulic fracturing at Preston New Road? Petroleum Exploration and Development Licences (PEDLs) are issued by the Oil and Gas Authority (OGA). The licences give operators exclusive rights to explore for and extract oil and gas in a specific area but not the right to drill. In the longer term, he said it was possible there could be a few localised operations, but they would be small and could not make a meaningful contribution to the UK’s energy needs. “They will never be at scale, because the capital costs are a huge issue,” he said. Information relating to traffic management can be found within our Traffic Management Plan, which is available here. The use of the routes from the M55 junction 4 and from the M55 junction 3 are the only routes proposed for HGVs during all phases of the project.We have said many times that the work at Preston New Road induced micro seismicity. Any movement underground is called an earthquake but as the British Geological Survey (BGS) says itself, those events detected at Preston New Road were far below anything they would normally be able to detect. Restoration – When all of the oil or natural gas that can be recovered economically from a reservoir has been produced, the land is returned to the way it was before the drilling operations started. Wells will be filled with cement and pipes cut off 3-6 feet below ground level. All surface equipment will be removed and all pads filled in with earth or replanted. The land can then be used again by the landowner for other activities, and there will be virtually no sign that a well was once there.

The purpose of exploration is to establish exactly how much gas a well could produce. Cuadrilla retained Anderson Thompson, a team of reservoir engineers, geoscientists and hydraulic fracturing specialists, to undertake analytical research on likely gas recovery volumes from horizontal wells to be drilled in the Lancashire Bowland shale. Anderson Thompson has broad international basin experience and specialist knowledge of the Permian, Eagle Ford, Bakken, Marcellus and Montney shale plays in North America. Peak Particle Velocity (PPV) provides an equivalent ground motion calculation about the impact felt at surface. Once the gas is released in the tiny fractures, held open by the grains of sand, the gas travels up the well to surface. When the hydraulic fracturing is completed the flow rate of natural gas produced from each well is tested over period of approximately six months.The University of Liverpool released a report in 2018 to help put the low-level threshold of the Traffic Light System into context. The researchers indicated that vibrations experienced during everyday life are equivalent, or exceed, those that may occur from induced seismicity during hydraulic fracturing operations. You can view the paper here. Questions about PEDLS What is a PEDL? The mineralogy of the Lancashire Bowland shale has been analysed in detail using X-ray diffraction of shale core samples and cuttings taken from the Preese Hall well. This analysis has confirmed that both the Upper and Lower Bowland shales are very well suited to hydraulic fracturing as they are formed from a highly siliceous matrix with consistently low overall clay content and not reactive clays. How much gas will the wells produce? The Committee on Climate Change recently published a report which recognises that we will continue to be using significant quantities of natural gas in the UK out to 2050 and beyond in conjunction with Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology and in producing hydrogen as an alternative energy for the future. The EA assess the risk to the environment and will not issue permits if the level of risk is assessed as unacceptable. They also give members of the public the opportunity to raise any issues they think they should consider through an open consultation. Operators must meet all baseline monitoring requirements set out in planning permission and environmental permits before drilling can begin and must also notify the environmental regulator of their intention to drill. Safety and well design