Perhaps Maths Isn’t Mr Egan’s Strong Point

Interviewed this morning on Radio Lancashire Francis Egan, Cuadrilla’s CEO, made the absolutely astounding claim, that

“the actual spend on any development itself would run into several hundred billions, most of which , we would hope would be spent in Lancashire.”

The country’s biggest shale gas cheerleader, the Institute of Directors, say that a mammoth 10 well x 40 lateral pad would require £0.514 billion in total Capital Expenditure and Operating Expenditure over it’s entire (assumed 20 year) lifetime, and they only envisage 100 such wells UK wide. Their report would therefore indicate maximum spend of just £50 billion in the whole of the UK. Cuadrilla’s own website says they only need 10 such pads giving a total investment requirement of just £5 billion.

To suggest therefore that “the actual spend on any development itself would run into several hundred billions, most of which , we would hope would be spent in Lancashire.” is best described as fantasy (unless of course you can think of any reasons why Cuadrilla’s CEO might want to exaggerate the spend to make fracking seem more attractive)

Mr Egan then went on to say, when asked if shale gas would reduce gas prices

“Well forecasting gas prices is a difficult business as you know but if you increase supply, then it will push prices down of course, gas is just a commodity – it’s driven by supply and demand. If we can get more gas out of the ground its going to exert a downward pressure on price no doubt.”

This is an curious assertion given that Mark Linder, a public relations executive at Bell Pottinger who is also responsible for Cuadrilla’s corporate development told Greenpeace that “We’ve done an analysis and it’s a very small…at the most it’s a very small percentage…basically insignificant.” Most informed sources, including those being paid by his company have discredited the idea that shale as will reduce prices in Europe, but Mr Egan still takes the opportunity to suggest the opposite here. Why?

Having listened to this interview we have to ask why it is that Mr Egan constantly bemoans the fact that his company gets criticised?

Isn’t it rather obvious that if you keep deliberately misleading people they will eventually start to question everything you tell them?

Did we mention that Cuadrilla’s press release this morning contained the same claim that “Cuadrilla uses proven, safe technologies to explore for and recover natural gas” which was ruled to breach the Advertising Standards Authority code on misleading advertising, substantiation, and exaggeration?

You really couldn’t make it up.