Cronin the Mathematician

Much has already been written about yesterday’s decision at NYCC, so I am going to concentrate on one statement that particularly struck me during the day.

I was sure I heard Ken Cronin of UKOOG explaining that UKOOG were working on the assumption that pad density would be “approximately 10 pads the size of 2 football pitches per 100 kilometres squared”.

I checked and he did, so if you ever wonder whether the industry’s spokespeople mislead planning committees and the UK in general look no further.

I happen to know that Cuadrilla’s licence area is 1,180 square kilometres in size

100 kilometres squared is 10,000 square kilometres as anyone doing GCSE maths should be able to tell you.

So at one well per 10,000 km2 UKOOG’s Chief Executive seems to be suggesting Cuadrilla would only need 1 pad in their licence area. I don’t think so!

Let’s assume then that he wasn’t listening all those years ago when his maths teacher was talking, and he really meant “approximately 10 pads the size of 2 football pitches per 100 square kilometres” (i.e. an area equivalent to 10 kilometres squared) . So he’d be suggesting 1 pad per 10 square kilometres, so he’d then be expecting that Cuadrilla would be planning about 130 pads in their PEDL 165 licence area.

How funny then that when we suggested to the ASA that Cuadrilla’s claim that “Some critics have suggested that the area would be blighted by densely packed, unattractive developments in the future, if we moved to a production stage. This would not be the case” was load of unsustainable rubbish, and that they planned at least 80 well pads in their licence area, Cuadrilla were able to escape the accusation that their claim was not capable of substantiation. They told the ASA that “If it were to proceed it could entail in the order of 10 to 20 development pads“. and that “there would be approximately one well pad every 23 square miles [60 square kilometres] or 46 square miles [120 square kilometres]  depending on whether ten or 20 well pads were constructed“.

Now somebody is lying through their teeth here, and they are doing so in order that the general population does not wake up to what is actually planned.

So Mr Cronin – can you clarify exactly how many pads you expect in an area 100 square kilometres (i.e. an area equivalent to 10km x 10km). As my old maths teacher would have said “please make sure you show your workings”

While you are at it perhaps you could explain why you made such a misleading statement to the planning committee yesterday and whether you believe what Cuadrilla told the ASA.

We’ll await your response with some interest.