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Pendle Hill at centre of new 'oil rush'?
PENDLE Hill could be the answer to the country's diminishing energy supplies after work got underway to try to uncover shale gas.
The experiment will be the first of its kind in the UK and if successful could see gas prices plummet to help solve the current energy crisis.
Tests to identify whether the natural gas - dubbed as the new oil rush, can be extracted from the underground rocks, are taking place on the same geographical formation which stretches through the Bowland shale at Pendle Hill to the Blackpool coast.
Cuadrilla Resources, the firm in charge of the operation will try to establish the scale of the gas found in the prehistoric clay by drilling down and horizontal, 10,000ft. below the surface.
Although it is still early days, co-founder of the company Mr Chris Cornelius is confident they have found an ideal location and believes Lancashire could potentially provide up to 10% of the UK's gas supply.
He told Channel 4 News: "Ultimately we are hopeful we would find certain deposits here that would add to the net reserves of the UK. I think we're quite confident we will find gas - it's just whether we find gas in economic quantities."
Mr Cornelius has also quashed claims the work could contaminate water supplies and assures sceptics there would not be major associated problems.
Shale gas is an unconventional source but is seen as a greener alternative to traditional energy sources such as fossil fuels.
The process of making the wells requires rock formations to be broken up using water and chemicals through a technique called "hydraulic fracturing" to release pockets of trapped gas. The gas then travels up the well bore and is collected at the surface.
America is already at the forefront of this new process after finding huge reserves of the gas which now accounts for 45% of the country's gas supply.
Cuadrilla Resources is only at the beginning of a long process but if successful could see Pendle Hill as the new energy hub of Britain.
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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