Speaking to Dominic OConnell on Times Radio Breakfast, Ineos CEO Tom Crotty said: “We never got the chance to do what we said wed do, which is to do a full assessment of the technology, do all the science and then make a decision… What we want to do is finish that process.”
Asked whether the governments test was still for the company to be able to predict earthquakes or earth tremors following fracking, he said: “Yeah, predictability is really important.
“And a lot of the predictability is understanding geology. And thats what we were trying to do, is understand the geology, lets do this in areas where, youre never going to have zero risk, theres always going to be some risk, but where the risk is absolutely low.
“And clearly, the risk to the public is zero, because what the government introduced is an ability to stop if you have any tremors that reach a certain level.
“So thats what still apply. The key is selecting the sites and doing it in the right place.”
Tom Crotty explained that rising energy prices should be considered when deciding to allow fracking. He said: “We need gas for the next 30 years for the energy transition. We are absolutely 100% committed to moving to renewables. In fact, were spending a lot of money as a company, we announced £2 billion in clean hydrogen recently, we want to get to that transition.
“But it is a transition and its going to take 30 years to do that. At the moment, were going to be reliant wholly on imported gas, coming across from, halfway across the world, often from regimes that we dont feel comfortable with when were sitting on gas under our feet.
“Now, it seems sensible to at least complete the science to say Could we access that gas instead?”
Listen to Tom Crottys interview on Times Radio.
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