UK shale suffers potentially fatal blow

Explorers say they will work with the government to try to revive the nascent shale gas industry, but a new fracking moratorium makes it look like an uphill struggle

The UK government's imposition of a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing in England brings to an end efforts to launch an industrial-scale shale gas industry in the country for the foreseeable future.  The government said in early November that it was pausing all shale gas exploration in England “unless and until further evidence is provided that it can be carried out safely”.  Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland already have moratoriums or other blocking legislation in place on fracking, so the process is now prohibited, at least temporarily, in the whole of the UK.  An interim report on the shale gas industry just published by the UK’s upstream regulator the Oil and Gas Authority (OGA), whi