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London: Scotland may face huge energy bills alone

Scottish consumers may end up paying "considerably more" to support an energy sector if they break from the United Kingdom, the British government said. The British government published a report Wednesday saying a single energy market would be better for the region’s economy. Scotland is to hold a referendum for independence from the United Kingdom in September. Its government says it could support itself in part with revenue from North Sea oil and natural gas reserves while powering its economy through renewable energy reserves. British Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Ed Davey said a united market has helped support the Scottish energy sector and has kept consumer energy bills down. "Scottish consumers would end up paying more, possibly considerably more, for energy infrastructure in an independent Scottish state than they do as part of the United Kingdom," he said in a […]

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North Sea coal seams eyed for natural gas

British energy company Five Quarter said it wants the government’s approval to try to coax natural gas from coal deposits under the North Sea bed. Five Quarter wants government support for its $2 billion plan to use oxygen and steam injection to produce gas from coal beds in the North Sea. So-called syngas would be processed onshore and fed to the chemical industry. Five Quarter Chief Executive Officer Harry Bradbury told the Daily Telegraph his company was looking for financial backing for a pre-drilling phase that could began later this year. Unlike hydraulic fracturing, another unconventional source of natural gas, Bradbury said coal seam gas would provide a reliable and less risky source of natural gas for the British economy. "Gas has become a global geopolitical issue as the supply and demand map has changed," he said Saturday. "Accelerating the development of North Sea […]

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North Sea Crude Loadings to Drop During May Maintenance

The amount of crude oil due to be pumped from fields in the North Sea is set to fall nearly 15% in May compared to the previous month, as maintenance season takes large swathes of production out of the market. The Oseberg field will load only two cargoes this month, according to provisional loading programs seen by The Wall Street Journal, compared with six last month. "I think it’s just normal field maintenance [and] I would say it was planned. Whether or not the market knew about it until very recently is another matter," said Steve Sawyer, an oil consultant at FACTS Global Energy. The total number of barrels to be loaded in May will be 24 million, down 14.9% from 28.2 million the month before. A North Sea oil trader said that the "large maintenance" was likely priced in, and that the Oseberg field is […]

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Britain Confronts Gas Mother Lode With Fracking by Lord Browne

The hills of Lancashire, England, sit atop a mother lode of shale gas that may be extracted with hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Photograph: Alan Clarke/Bloomberg Markets Close The hills of Lancashire, England, sit atop a mother lode of shale gas that may be extracted with hydraulic… Read More The hills of Lancashire, England, sit atop a mother lode of shale gas that may be extracted with hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Photograph: Alan Clarke/Bloomberg Markets Close John Browne, a former CEO of BP, is a prime mover behind efforts exploit Britain’s natural gas through fracking. … Read More John Browne, a former CEO of BP, is a prime mover behind efforts exploit Britain’s natural gas through fracking. Photograph: Alan Clarke/Bloomberg Markets Close Andrew Pemberton, who keeps 130 cows, says he’s worried that his dairy business is located downstream from a proposed… Read More Andrew Pemberton, who keeps […]

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Air pollution hits maximum level in southeast Britain

Air pollution in parts of Greater London and southeast England deteriorated on Thursday, hitting the maximum level on the government scale despite forecasts that it would start to abate. Defra, the environment department, forecasts that air pollution will be at or near 10 on its scale of one to 10 in East Anglia, through the Midlands, into easternmost Wales, on Merseyside and as far south as through London into northern Kent. A reading of 10 is classified as “very high”. Frank Kelly, professor of environmental health at King’s College London, said: “Today is going to be the worst day of the last couple of weeks.” He recommended that children be kept indoors in areas where pollution is high or very high. “The general understanding of the effects of air pollution on children is that it leads to a decrease in their lung growth,” he said. “This is precautionary […]

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Cuadrilla: UK Could Produce Shale Gas in 4 Years in Emergency

LONDON, April 2 (Reuters) – Shale gas production in Britain could begin within four years if the current crisis in Ukraine escalates to such an extent that a national state of emergency is declared, the chief executive of Cuadrilla Resources said. Britain is in the early stages of exploring for shale gas to counter its growing dependence on imports, and geologists have estimated it could have shale resources equivalent to several hundred years of demand. Cuadrilla is the only company in Britain so far to have used hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in test wells in Lancashire. It is two to three years away from establishing whether its British shale gas operations are commercially viable, Chief Executive Francis Egan said at an event at think-tank Chatham House on Tuesday evening. If the Ukraine crisis worsens dramatically and Britain declares a state of national emergency and removes all constraints, "it would […]

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UK’s biggest coal miner on verge of collapse

UK Coal is appealing for government support to stave off a collapse that would cost 2,000 jobs. The largest coal miner in Britain was rescued last year by the Pension Protection Fund , which preserves the pensions of employees whose companies go bust. But it is on the brink of insolvency again. Hargreaves Services , the only other domestic large scale miner , is also in talks to invest in the business, according to people familiar with the situation. Its proposal to buy UK Coal for £20m was rejected by administrators last year in favour of the PPF rescue. Hargreaves could not be reached for comment. In case that bid fails, UK Coal is asking for £10m of government funding to close two of the past three deep pits in Britain and sell off its surface mines. The business, which is burning cash reserves because of the low […]

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London awards grants for low-carbon heating schemes

The British government said Wednesday two dozen communities received more than $3 million in grants to develop heating networks using low-carbon technology. British Energy and Climate Change Minister Greg Barker said using energy from waste, or what he described as recovered heat from the industrial sector, would help advance a low-carbon economy. "Heat networks are a defining part of our smarter, cleaner energy future," he added in a statement Wednesday. Grants for 24 local communities are valued at a combined $3.4 million. More than 50 local communities since January 2014 have received similar developmental grants ranging in value from $24,000 to $410,000 each. As part of a broader European agreement, the British government is committed to using renewable energy to meet 20 percent of its demand by 2020. © 2014 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly […]

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Well integrity a fracking concern, British study finds

March 25 (UPI) — A study published Tuesday in the British journal Marine and Petroleum Geology finds underground wells used for shale exploration may cause water contamination. A study from Research Fracking in Europe, or ReFINE, finds the structural casing of underground wells may present a risk to underground water supplies. In the Marcellus shale play in the United States, the study found around 6 percent of the 8,000 wells had some sort of well integrity issue. In the United Kingdom, it found about one half of one percent of active wells showed evidence of failure. With European countries looking to replicate U.S. success with shale exploration, the study found the data on well failure rates of onshore wells in Europe were "scarce." Richard Davies, the project’s leader from Durham University, said well integrity will be an issue if the shale narrative evolves in Europe. "The data from the […]

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British foreign secretary calls for renewed focus on energy security

British Foreign Secretary said it was time for European leaders to get serious about energy diversity in response to the crisis over Ukraine. "We would need to boost investment in gas interconnections and terminals in Europe, and develop indigenous European energy supplies for countries wishing to develop their own resources, such as shale gas," he wrote in the Sunday Telegraph. European energy consumers get about a quarter of their gas needs met by Russia, though the bulk of that runs through the Soviet-era gas transit network in Ukraine. The turmoil that erupted in November has sparked concerns about the security of European energy supplies. Hague said renewed focus should be on the so-called Southern Corridor, a series of transit networks that would rely in part on gas supplies from Azerbaijan. Envisioned before the most recent crisis, the Southern Corridor is meant to break the Russian grip on the regional […]

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