THE firm that wants to establish a fracking industry in Scotland has launched a bid to win the backing of the SNP, as environmentalists urged SNP members to ignore it and send a clear message to the party leadership
Ineos, which owns the Grangemouth industrial complex and holds fracking exploration licenses across large swathes of central Scotland, has sought to win over the party grassroots by opening a stall at the conference, which was well attended on the first day of the gathering yesterday.
Friends of the Earth Scotland said that a debate on unconventional oil and gas today offered members the chance to call for the Scottish Government to bring in a total ban on the controversial techniques, rather than the moratorium that is currently in place.
Dr Richard Dixon, director of the charity, said: "The SNP has faced growing pressure from within its own ranks from the new campaign group SNP Members Against Unconventional Gas (SMAUG), who are calling on the Scottish Government to ban fracking, coal-bed methane and underground coal gasification outright. The Scottish Government must listen to its party members as well as communities from across Scotland who do not want unconventional fossil fuels because of climate change, environmental and economic impacts.
"Fracking and unconventional fossil fuels have no place in Scotland’s future energy mix. The world has many times more fossil fuel reserves than we can afford to burn if we want to avoid dangerous climate change."
The motion that will be debated today calls on the Government to introduce a moratorium against underground coal gasification (UCG), which sees hard-to-reach coal seams set alight and gas siphoned off to the surface. Fracking sees water, sand and chemicals pumped underground in wells to fracture shale rock, releasing gas.
The conference resolution has been overtaken by events, after energy minister Fergus Ewing performed a u-turn and brought in a UCG moratorium.
Tom Pickering, the Ineos director in charge of the company's shale gas operation in Scotland, was manning the stall yesterday and said he was delighted to answer members' questions.
He added: "At the public meetings I have attended people come to me and highlight safety concerns they have read about on the internet. Sadly there has been much misinformation put out about shale gas."
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