First shipment of US shale gas arrives at Grangemouth

The first shipment of US shale gas to Britain is due to dock at Ineos' Grangemouth plant in Scotland this lunchtime.

The tanker named Ineos Insight is carrying 27,500 cubic metres of gas extracted using hydraulic fracturing. It entered the Firth of Forth this morning setting off from Marcus Hook in Pennsylvania two weeks ago and anchoring in the Orkney Isles over the weekend. The vessel contains ethane gas which will be used at the chemical plant.

Ineos chairman and founder Jim Ratcliffe said: “This is a hugely important day for Ineos and the UK. We are very excited about the kick-start shale gas can give to British manufacturing”.

The Insight is one of a fleet of eight ‘Dragon’ class ships which Ineos has chartered to form a “virtual pipeline” between US shale fields and Britain. 

The news comes after Labour shadow energy secretary Barry Gardiner announced yesterday that the party would ban fracking in the UK if it was voted into office.

Speaking at the Labour conference in Liverpool, he said although there were technical problems which “give rise to real environmental dangers”, they could be overcome.

He said the real problem, however, was that it “locks us into an energy infrastructure that is based on fossil fuel fuels long after our country needs to have moved to clean energy”.

The announcement was slammed by the GMB, which said it would leave the UK dependent for its gas on regimes fronted by “henchmen, hangmen and headchoppers”.

“That isn’t ethical and is surely an abdication of our environmental and moral responsibilities,” said the union’s Scotland secretary Gary Smith.

“The truth is most of our gas last year came from Norway,” said Gardiner, responding on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning.  “We will need gas in the future through to 2030 but by then, if you look at the latest Oxford Econometrics report they’re saying that there’ll be probably be a 25 per cent reduction in our need for gas.”

Cuadrilla chief executive Francis Egan replied that the remaining 75 per cent was still “a huge volume of gas” and that “we’ll be importing all of it”.

“The fact remains that two out of three people, probably more, use gas in this country to heat their homes and cook, and you cannot change that overnight,” he added. “To make a policy decision that says we are going to ignore, even at an exploration stage, our own resource and carry on importing it from as far away as the US is frankly ridiculous.”

Asked whether British shale gas could compete on price with US imports, he said: “Well of course we would. That’s why we’re in the business.”

Egan continued: “If we can’t develop gas literally 100 metres from a pipeline in the UK cheaper for the end consumer than you can extract it in the US, ship it 3,000 miles across the Atlantic and turn it back from a liquid into a gas then we shouldn’t be in business.”

Speaking to Utility Week in June, IGas chief operating officer Paul Blaymires said British shale should be viable if the flow rates achieved in the US can be matched.

The month before Third Energy was given consent to test hydraulic fracturing at an existing exploratory well near the village of Kirby Misperton in North Yorkshire. It was the first time an application for fracking received council approval in the UK since a ban was lifted in 2012.

However, no fracking will take place at the site until next year after the High Court set later than expected dates for a judicial review into a landmark planning decision.

The Scottish government announced a moratorium on fracking in January last year, and in June the Scottish parliament voted to introduce a permanent ban. MSPs from the SNP abstained from voting on the non-binding motion.