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Shale gas - public ownership?

Nigel

Nigel

pfm Member
Disregarding potential environmental consequences for a minute, surely if we are potentially sitting on millions of pounds of energy reserves there is a case to be put forward for bringing this into the public ownership? Why should the profiteers benefit from our natural resources?
 
because they are risking their money to search for it while the Civil service sit on their hands. If the government was pro active they would have been drilling for oil and shale gas many years ago.

Apart from that there is quite a large tax levy on all extracted oil and gas - so the country does benefit from the investment of other organisations without the country incurring any risk.
 
Under the Petroleum Act 1988, shale gas belongs to the Crown and not to the landowner and a Government licence is needed to extract it. The licence holder can obtain ancillary rights under the Mines (Working Facilities and Support) Act 1966 - for example, to occupy land, to obtain a water supply, to dispose of effluent, to erect buildings and to lay pipes. Such rights will be granted by the court if it is not reasonably practicable to obtain them by private negotiation. The landowner is entitled to compensation. However, the 2011 trespass case of Bocardo SA v Star Energy Ltd has established that the measure of such compensation will be what the grantor (the landowner) is losing rather than what the grantee (the licence-holder) is gaining. Nevertheless, the 1998 Act provides for a very favourable costs regime in favour of those from whom ancillary rights are sought under the provisions of the 1966 Act.
 
I would re-nationalise all the utilities. It is beyond reason that such essential resources are owned by private, rapacious, profit-making, customer-shafting c*nts.
 
Derek Wright said:
because they are risking their money to search for it while the Civil service sit on their hands. If the government was pro active they would have been drilling for oil and shale gas many years ago.
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The Civil Service does what the Government tells them to do. So far successive Governments (mainly Conservative) have said sell the essentials of life to our buddies in the private sector.
 
Cav said:
The Civil Service does what the Government tells them to do. So far successive Governments (mainly Conservative) have said sell the essentials of life to our buddies in the private sector.
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And even worse it's all gone to French and Chinese public sectors ime.
Probably other bits owned by USA and GDR etc.

I blame our love of cricket.
 
Cav said:
I would re-nationalise all the utilities. It is beyond reason that such essential resources are owned by private, rapacious, profit-making, customer-shafting c*nts.
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Trouble is that description is spot on for our government.
 
And said members of govt will go on to be directors or consultants for the oil companies not that this would influence their decision making in any way of course ;)
 
In my opinion, shale gas/oil development needs a US-style system where the landowner has skin in the game (a share of the profits). This type of development requires a large number of drill centres, and many vehicles etc on the landowners property. The current PA is not fair to the landowner for such intensive activity (IMO) and therefore the industry is not likely to progress at the rate required for success.
 
Cav said:
I would re-nationalise all the utilities. It is beyond reason that such essential resources are owned by private, rapacious, profit-making, customer-shafting c*nts.
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Governments no matter which lot are in power are useless at running a business.
 
Easier to sue companies than It is the gubbiment, ok not that much easier but I think they know something we are not supposed to know about fracking and the potential lawsuits that arise from say causing mass earthquakes and flammable gas leeching in the water table where it don't have no right to go. Plus 20 years down the line who knows? Health issues, barren land no use for anything. All sorts of groovy stuff awaits. It's a fracking stupid idea dreamed up by the equivalent of alcoholics scooping up spilled meths off of the floor.

It's perfectly safe, sure. I believe them.

This way gubbiment can wash its hands clean of the mess when its elected out of office, or when cabinets are reshuffled, MPs leave/retire/get cushy jobs in the EU... and all the backhanders we all know are given out or secure 'jobs for the boys' are spent and forgotten about.
 
Fox
Easier to sue companies than It is the gubbiment, ok not that much easier but I think they know something we are not supposed to know about fracking and the potential lawsuits that arise from say causing mass earthquakes and flammable gas leeching in the water table where it don't have no right to go. Plus 20 years down the line who knows? Health issues, barren land no use for anything.
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Using this criteria there would have been no coal mines, and hence no coal gas, metal bashing industries et - the 19th Century would have been an agricultural century along with the 20th and 21st Centuries.
 
Fox said:
causing mass earthquakes and flammable gas leeching in the water table where it don't have no right to go.
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These risks are manageable and have been blown out of proportion by the soap-dodging lefties. Hydraulic fracturing of hydrocarbon reservoirs has been taking place since 1947 and approximately 60% of oil/gas wells use the technique to some extent to enhance productivity.

The community impact of the surface operations (lots of trucks, rigs etc) is a more legitimate concern in a densely populated country.
 
Tell that to the people in the USA who's families, homes and lives, have been blighted by the effects of fracturing. Bottom line we shouldn't be injecting toxins under pressure into the earth- anywhere...
 
sq225917 said:
Tell that to the people in the USA who's families, homes and lives, have been blighted by the effects of fracturing. Bottom line we shouldn't be injecting toxins under pressure into the earth- anywhere...
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You need to take a balanced view regarding the people whose lives are 'blighted' vs those that can now afford to heat their home in winter, or who now have a job vs long term unemployment etc.

If all hydraulic fracturing was stopped, world energy production and resources would be reduced drastically, and prices would go upwards very fast. This would cause a big increase in world poverty, as energy would be unaffordable to those on the lowest income. What do you prefer? Are you comfortable with an annual energy bill 2 or 3 times what it is now, assuming your income remains constant?
 
The wrangling over licences and a super mining tax has caused a couple of large projects to be shelved here in Australia. This for me is great news, leave it in the ground, it is going nowhere and will only appreciate in value.
If i was put in a position of granting fracking licences i would instruct all prospective companies to prove that they can fix/restore one of those terrible leaking wells in America.
 
andrewd said:
You need to take a balanced view regarding the people whose lives are 'blighted' vs those that can now afford to heat their home in winter, or who now have a job vs long term unemployment etc.

If all hydraulic fracturing was stopped, world energy production and resources would be reduced drastically, and prices would go upwards very fast. This would cause a big increase in world poverty, as energy would be unaffordable to those on the lowest income. What do you prefer? Are you comfortable with an annual energy bill 2 or 3 times what it is now, assuming your income remains constant?
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We need another Count Rumford;)
 
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