Houses shake as third record-breaking tremor hits UK’s only fracking site
26th August 2019 | Commercial Energy
A tremor measuring 2.9 on the Richter scale has been felt near the UK’s only active fracking site, less than two days after a previously record-breaking tremor at the facility. The British Geological Survey reported a large tremor related to fracking activity hit near Blackpool at 8.30am on Monday.
The tremor comes only two days after a 2.1 scale “micro seismic event” was detected at the Cuadrilla energy site late on Saturday evening, previously the largest tremor ever recorded at the site. That event lead to operations being suspended at the site, and they had not resumed by the time of Monday’s tremor, which had a depth of two kilometres and was strong enough to be felt by some residents.
Fracking
According to the British Geological Survey, this is the third tremor at the Preston New Road site in a week after a 1.55-magnitude tremor was recorded last Wednesday. Routine policy states hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking, is paused for 18 hours following any tremors larger than 0.5 on the scale. However all work on the site had been suspended following Saturday’s tremor to allow for an investigation by the Oil and Gas Authority.
The Oil and Gas Authority said, “Operations will remain suspended while the OGA gathers data from this and other recent seismic events and then considers carefully whether or not the hydraulic fracturing operations, mitigations and assumptions set out in the operator’s Hydraulic Fracture Plan continue to be appropriate to manage the risk of induce seismicity at the Preston New Road site.”
Environmental campaign group Friends of the Earth has called for a complete fracking ban after the three large tremors. Spokesman Jamie Peters said, “This issue of earthquakes in connection to unwanted fracking has always been serious but now it is getting out of hand. It’s clearly not under control and at this point there is only one thing that can fix this situation: a ban, right now.”
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