Firm Launches "Fracking Facts" Campaign

INEOS is launching an education programme to dispel what it calls the myths around fracking.

The chemical firm claims nearby communities will gain £2.5billion pounds handed back from profits generated through shale gas extraction.

It's holding meetings in 15 towns from April to pitch shale gas extraction to areas that neighbour potential drilling sites, and has released videos showcasing the benefits of the controversial practice.

The company, which operates the Grangemouth plant, owns the licence to frack off the coast of Fife.

Kingdom FM News revealed last month that Scottish government plans to temporarily ban fracking don't cover the Firth of Forth, because the seabed is controlled by the Crown Estate.

INEOS Upstream CEO, Gary Haywood, says, “The Scottish government wants the public to be fully informed about Shale gas production and we are determined to help.
We are launching Scotland’s biggest Shale gas information programme to make sure that local communities get a chance to hear the facts rather than the myths about Shale gas”.

Mary Church from Friends of the Earth says the firm's "PR stunt" comes to late.

She said: “Ineos's pie-in-the-sky claims of huge sums of money for communities will never be delivered. Using the questionable economics of the USA industry to woo communities when we know UK costs will be much higher is simply indefensible. The company is on record saying that if they frack and don’t get enough gas, then communities won’t get a penny.

"The figures the company is using are also based on highly uncertain and exaggerated estimates of how much gas it might be possible to extract from UK shale beds."

"In the unlikely event that Ineos’s fracking operation make any profits a tiny fraction will go to making a few landowners better off and even less would be distributed amongst communities living in license areas. By Ineos's own definition, a shale gas community benefiting from any payments would be living with 200 wells drilled and fracked per 100 square km of license area."

“We are convinced that when Scotland has thoroughly reviewed the evidence around health and climate impacts of unconventional gas the moratorium will swiftly become a permanent ban, just like in New York State. Ineos is pouring its money down the drain trying to sell fracking in Scotland when it’s never going to happen anyway.”