Government advisor and Cuadrilla chairman Lord Browne personally intervened in a reported argument between the Environment Agency (EA) and the shale gas company over whether tough regulations on environmental waste should be applied to its operations.
Also in this series:
Who owns the rights to drill in the UK?
Where are drilling licenses issued? and which seats are included?
What's happening in Balcombe (Part 1)?
FOI documents reveal how the regulations were made (Part 1)
Fracking and Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials (NORM)
The argument reportedly delayed fracking approval in the UK by ‘one or two months’.
Documents and emails obtained by Energydesk through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request show the extent of lobbying by Cuadrilla to be exempt from the 2011 regulations on how it monitored and disposed of waste products from drilling.
In a separate exchange, officials from the EA were asked by Environment Secretary Owen Paterson to clarify rules on how long the agency would take to issue environmental permits. The agency has subsequently streamlined the permitting process for firms.
Lord Browne
Cuadrilla believed that it should not be forced to apply for a waste permit for exploratory drilling because the concentrations of chemicals used in fracking fluid (including Hydrochloric acid) were not classed as hazardous and much of the waste remains underground.
In an interview with The Times in May Lord Smith said “Their argument was that this was stuff which would not come to the surface anyway and therefore should not be regarded as a waste....we believed it was appropriate to be treated as a waste.”
In a letter to the EA sent in August last year, Cuadrilla noted “we are not aware of any other instances where the Mining Waste Directive has been applied to a UK onshore oil or gas exploration activity".
The EA responded at the time by asking what the firm intended to do with wastes including “chloride containing drilling mud” and fracking fluid contaminated with minerals and Naturally Occurring Radioactive Wastes (NORM).
By October, however, Cuadrilla had not backed down, with chief executive Francis Egan writing “our issues have not changed... our view [is] that the Mining Waste Directive does not apply".
The following month saw the intervention of the former BP chief executive Lord Browne, with an agency official noting:
“Lord Smith had a meeting with Lord Browne, Chairman of Cuadrilla, who raised concerns about consistency with the conventional oil and gas sector and the desire for a level playing field.
“Regulated Industry, NPS and Legal Services are working to ensure our legal interpretations are robust to such challenges, especially around application of Mining Waste Directive to shale gas operations.”
The rules - which the EA successfully enforced - mean Cuadrilla has to apply for a waste permit before it can carry out drilling activities. The permit could force the company to monitor all drilling wastes - potentially for decades after operations have ended.
In a statement issued to The Times last year, Cuadrilla said “We enjoy a very good working relationship with the Environment Agency and we have worked constructively together in progressing the environmental permits required for our operations. We fully expect that constructive working relationship to continue in the future as we further develop our operations.”
Paterson
During the row emails between regulators and civil servants working for the Secretary of State Owen Paterson, show how the agency worked alongside government to introduce new guidance for shale gas permitting.
One email suggested Mr Paterson also wanted the permitting process made more friendly for fracking firms saying “he asked that the EA’s announcement document be cleared in P6 on the time that it will take to issue the permits".
