Scotland To Receive First Shipment Of Gas From Fracking

Gas extracted from shale fracked in the United States will arrive in Britain next week—a first for Britain—which could prompt Scotland to rethink its strong opposition to fracking.

The petrochemicals company Ineos will deliver a shipment of ethane - a product used to create plastic, anti-freeze and detergents – next Tuesday.

A lone Scots piper will greet the shipment at dawn in Scotland’s Firth of Forth, the company said.

The shipment is a precursor to large deliveries of liquefied natural gas sourced from fracked U.S. shale, which will reach European shores by 2018, according to Reuters.

The Zurich-based company stands against the Scottish moratorium on fracking. The firm is Britain’s largest shale gas firm in acreage, and promises to share six percent of revenues with local residents.

Supporting fracking would create thousands of new jobs, according to Ineos’ Chairman Jim Ratcliffe – one of the richest men in Britain.

"Shale gas can help stop the decline of British manufacturing and this is a first step in that direction," he said in a statement, pointing to Scotland’s soon-to-be struggling economy if/when Brexit is implemented.

Scotland implemented its fracking moratorium in 2015, arguing that the government needed to see more research on the issue before allowing the practice to continue.

Britain has been more receptive to the practice in recent months.

In a 7-4 vote in May, Councilors of the county of North Yorkshire approved industrial tests that will allow fracking in the country for the first time in five years.

The last fracking incident in Britain occurred in 2011, when the U.K.-based oil and gas company Cuadrilla Resources admitted that two minor earthquakes in north-west England had been caused by the company’s use of the controversial drilling practice.

David Cameron and his ministers welcomed the tests, and the prime minister said in 2014 that his “government was going all out for shale.”

The Wall Street Journal said the British leader is “eager” to replicate the success of the United States’ shale boom.

By Zainab Calcuttawala for Oilprice.com

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