The Scottish Government has extended energy giant Ineos' license to frack in Central Scotland by a year, despite claiming it plans to ban the practise
Environmentalists have hit out at the Scottish Government for extending a fracking licence despite pledging to ban on the controversial practise.
Officials have extended the initial term of the licence owned by energy giant Ineos by one year to frack an area in the central belt covering 400 square kilometres.
Last year Nicola Sturgeon told MSPs that “Fracking is banned in Scotland – end of story” after a four month consultation showed overwhelming opposition to the gas extraction technique.
The government however has yet to formalise its position through legislation and until then fracking remains, technically, legal.
Ineos recently challenged the move to ban fracking by judicial review.
However in his judgement in May, Lord Pentland turned the lack of legislation against Ineos, ruling the energy company's challenge was "unfounded" due to "no prohibition against fracking in force".
Campaigners are now calling for the Scottish Government to enforce the ban before more companies are given fracking licences.
Mary Church, Friends of the Earth Scotland's head of campaigns, said: "Extending this licence risks adding to the confusion caused by Ineos’s recent legal challenge, and only increases the pressure on the Scottish Government to move forward with its decision making process, legislate to ban fracking and draw a line under this issue for good.
"It is disappointing that the Scottish Government has opted to extend the license that was due to expire last month, when people locally and nationally have said no to fracking so clearly.
“The operators have already had one extension to this license and despite having consents in place before the moratorium on fracking, they hadn't fulfilled their drilling commitments, so clearly this licence should have been revoked.”
Church added that while it is unlikely operators will be able to do much in terms of advancing their shale gas ambitions in the next 12 months, it is an “uncomfortable position for the Scottish Government to take given its opposition to fracking."
Ineos owns two fracking licences in Scotland and imports fracked shale gas from the United States to process at its refinery in Grangemouth. It has said that a ban on fracked oil and gas extraction would result in Scotland missing out on economic benefits, including about 3,100 jobs and £1 billion for local communities.
Energy minister Paul Wheelhouse said: “The extension of the PEDL 162 licence does not alter the current position that we do not support the development of unconventional oil and gas while the statutory assessments on the Scottish Government’s longer-term preferred policy are undertaken, as explained in the minister’s statement last October. It should be remembered that the area affected does not have planning permission or the necessary environmental licences required prior to allowing any unconventional oil and gas extraction.
“In that regard, a result of the actions taken by this government, no local authority can grant planning permission for any proposed fracking or coal bed methane project and Scottish ministers would defer any decision on any planning application that did come forward until the full policymaking process on our preferred position is completed and, as ministers propose, a policy to not support unconventional oil and gas is adopted in planning policy.
“The practical effect of the moratorium established in 2015 is that no fracking can take place in Scotland at this time.”
