Back in 2012 we raised a series of issues with the Advertising Standards Authority regarding a leaflet sent out to local residents by Cuadrilla. Several of our complaints were upheld in the ruling of 2013 including one which stated

Cuadrilla uses proven, safe technologies to explore for and recover natural gas

The ASA duly adjudicated that

On this point, the claim “Cuadrilla uses proven, safe technologies to explore for and recover natural gas” breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 (Misleading advertising), 3.7 (Substantiation) and 3.11 (Exaggeration).

We were disappointed a couple of months later to have to report that Cuadrilla used almost exactly the same phrase in a Press Release.

Cuadrilla Resources uses proven, safe technologies to explore for and recover natural gas reserves

We did raise this with the ASA but they wriggled out of having to take any politically awkward action by saying:

“as it’s a press release (which is not considered advertising) we can’t take action”

It was disappointing that Cuadrilla took such a cynical attitude to the censure that they received from the ASA, but we supposed that readers would draw their own conclusions about what this says about the company, and perhaps the industry as a whole.

Imagine out surprise though when last night it was pointed out to us that Cuadrilla are making exactly the same claim on a website called http://www.shalegaslancashire.co.uk/

We think this is taking cynicism to a totally unacceptable level and would ask Francis Egan to explain why he feel able to throw the ASA’s ruling back in its face in this way. If he responds we will be happy to publish his answer here. There can be no doubt that these words are Cuadrilla’s own as the footer on the page states:

What is more concerning perhaps though is the involvement of two other bodies in making this claim – the logos of the East Lancs Chamber of Commerce and the North West Lancs Chamber of Commerce are  clearly visible on the page, and although Cuadrilla claim the copyright on all of the page content, the web site is actually registered by these two bodies.

Backing Fracking (more on them later) pointed out to us that this link between the Chambers and Cuadrilla was made public last year at http://www.lancashirebusinessview.co.uk/lancashire-chambers-join-forces-create-shale-gas-portal-50922/

This doesn’t change the fact that these Chambers will not be able to claim to offer any form of independent opinion at the enquiry which opens on 9th February.

Given the fact that local Chambers of Commerce are frequently in receipt of tax payer funding, it might seem reasonable to assume that you and I are, directly or indirectly, funding the promotion of Cuadrilla Resources’ interests by Chambers of Commerce who appear quite happy to put their names to questionable statements that have previously been censured by the ASA.

If this is not the case maybe someone from one of the Chambers can clarify the situation for us?

Here is what their CEO Francis Egan had to say, as reported in the Blackpool Gazette.

We would love to be able to direct you to the on-line version, so that you could see it for yourself but, for reasons which we don’t fully understand, the Gazette seems to be the only newspaper which carried this story but which did not also include it in their on-line version.

Cuadrilla reaction

First of all, let’s be absolutely clear that the ASA did NOT in any way confirm that hydraulic fracturing can be done safely, and to suggest that they did is totally misleading. You might think that having had his company caught out misleading the public Mr Egan might be have been a bit more careful with his comments, but it looks as though they can’t really help themselves from coming out with this sort of distortion of reality.

Bizarrely, having stated this, he then goes on to totally invalidate any worth that statement might have had, even if it were the truth, by saying “We do believe the ASA should have consulted scientific experts before reaching it’s conclusions”.

It’s interesting that Mr Egan seems to presuppose that they didn’t do so. I’m not sure what they did during the 9 months or so that this complaint has been under investigation, but it is reasonable to assume that they spent a fair amount of time investigating and comparing the scientific evidence in order to feel able to adjudicate here.

His final comment is also misleading as the ASA did not in fact “validate” any points. It merely didn’t accept our complaints. The two things are not the same by any stretch of the imagination, but it IS amusing to see that Mr Egan is prepared to claim “validation” from these people who he accused earlier of not knowing their science when it suits him.

In at least one case the ASA’s refusal to accept a complaint was rather perverse. Cuadrilla argued that the development wouldn’t be dense and unattractive on the basis that their licence area was 1200 Km2 and would only have 10 well pads on it. We provided evidence from Cuadrilla’s own website that a:) under their licence they had to return half of the licence area to the government and b:) Cuadrilla were in fact proposing up to 80 wells but the ASA told us

a) Yes, we are aware of the mandatory relinquishment of 50%. We are still minded to base our recommendation on CRL’s statement that the well pads would be spread across the entire 1200 km2 area.
b) Yes, we have based our recommendation on the information provided to us by CRL and not on the figures from their website which show the number of well pads to be 80 at the higher end.

We can’t pretend to understand their logic , but unlike Francis Egan we won’t be throwing a hissy fit about it.

Back to Cuadrilla’s responses…

In the Guardian we read that

Cuadrilla strongly disputes many of the ASA’s criticisms, which will be subject to appeal. For instance, the ASA said that the company could not claim its “fracturing fluid does not contain hazardous or toxic components”, because although the company has used only water, sand and a non-toxic friction-reducing chemical to date, it could use other substances in future. Cuadrilla called this “absurd and pedantic”.

Appeal? Cuadrilla have already spent the last 9 months desperately trying to provide evidence to the ASA to neutralise our claims. We wish them good luck with their appeal. We can’t wait to see the results.

And “absurd and pedantic” ??? Oh dear – perhaps Mr Egan isn’t aware of the fact that his own company’s website states that

“Cuadrilla’s fracturing fluid, … along with fresh water and sand includes:

Polyacrylamide friction reducer
Hydrochloric acid
Biocide
Sodium salt

Is it really “absurd and pedantic” to believe what they tell us? Really?

Mr Egan then says

we will be examining the adjudication carefully to see what communication lessons can be learned in future.

Perhaps the simplest lesson he could take from all this is that if you don’t deal honestly with people they will lose trust in you and then you won’t get the “social licence to operate” which you so desperately want.

And finally, rather unbelievably, he says

However, he said it was important that the ASA had ruled that fracking “can be done safely”.

Again – the ASA has done no such thing and to suggest that they have is pretty disrespectful of the role that this organisation plays in keeping communication between businesses and the public as honest as it can.

Having taken all this in we can’t help noticing that Cuadrilla really don’t seem to be taking this very seriously. The best illustration of this, perhaps is the fact that that 2 weeks after they were provided with a ruling that condemned their claim that “Cuadrilla’s fracturing fluid does not contain hazardous or toxic components”, and 2 days after that ruling was made public and reported worldwide, exactly that same claim is still made on their corporate website.

Do they really think this stuff doesn’t matter? Do they think the people of Lancashire are stupid? … or are they simply incompetent?

Strangely the News section of Cuadrilla’s site carried no mention of this latest accolade.

The Guardian was the first paper to publish an article
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/apr/24/caudrilla-censured-fracking-safety-claims
Curiously this article suggested (incorrectly) that the ASA had suggested changes to Cuadrilla’s claims

Cuadrilla was also criticised by the ASA for asserting that “we know that hydraulic fracturing does not lead to contamination of the underground aquifer”. That must be changed to: “To ensure that there can be no route for fluid or gas to leak from the shale rock up to the aquifer, we use multiple layers of steel casing sealed by cement.”

That was factually incorrect but the article was sympathetic, pointing out that

The censure by the Advertising Standards Authority will force a significant watering down of some of the company’s claims and is a further blow to Cuadrilla, which has halted fracking at all of its UK sites following a series of setbacks.

Locally the Lancashire Evening Post picked up very quickly on the story

http://www.lep.co.uk/news/business/watchdog-censures-cuadrilla-over-fracking-leaflet-1-5608726

The BBC picked up the article shortly afterwards

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-22284340

and Reuters

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/04/24/uk-cuadrilla-fracking-advertising-idUKBRE93N0PZ20130424

sent it worldwide so we ended up with coverage as far away as Africa!

http://africanoilandgasnews.com/news/uk-cuadrilla-must-tone-down-fracking-safety-claims-uk-watchdog

We were also pleased to see that the Gasland Facebook page picked up on the story.

Here is a sample of the coverage we got elsewhere.

http://www.utilityweek.co.uk/news/news_story.asp?id=198447&title=ASA+orders+shale+gas+fracker+Cuadrilla+to+mind+its+language
http://www.naturalgaseurope.com/cuadrilla-warned-about-exaggerating-safety-claims
http://www.lse.co.uk/FinanceNews.asp?code=pcpscd9v&headline=Cuadrilla_must_tone_down_fracking_safety_claims_UK_watchdog
http://stopfyldefracking.org.uk/latest-news/the-claim-that-cuadrilla-used-proven-safe-technologies-has-not-been-substantiated-asa/
http://www.frackingdigest.co.uk/

In July 2012 Cuadrilla and their PR agency, PPS Group, created a “community newsletter” which was posted to thousands of households in Lancashire.

It contained claims about the safety of fracking which were evidently not sustainable, so local group Refracktion (www.refracktion.com) wrote to the ASA with a list of claims which it believed required scrutiny.

The ASA ruling, released on Wednesday 24th April 2013, identifies 21 ways in which the 8 page leaflet breaches the ASA’s advertising code on grounds including being misleading, misleading by omitting material information, making subjective claims, making claims without adequate substantiation, and exaggeration. More detail of these breaches is provided at the end of this article.

The ASA’s adjudication means that Cuadrilla’s “newsletter” may not appear again in its present form.

A spokesman for Refracktion commented:

“Cuadrilla make great play of their commitment to a “fact-based conversation” about fracking and have even suggested that the case against fracking has been commandeered by extremists. What we can clearly see here is that the necessary “conversation” is not being distorted by extremists but by Cuadrilla themselves.

There are many people in Lancashire trying to make rational, fact-based decisions about the potential impact of fracking on their communities, and this misleading information that has been peddled by Cuadrilla has made this much more difficult than it needs to be.

It is unfortunate that Cuadrilla will not be made to publish any sort of apology and so very few of those who were exposed to the questionable information in this newsletter are likely to realise the extent to which they have been misled. However, we feel this ruling is a clear vindication of our efforts to maintain a truthful and constructive debate on the issues around fracking.

Now that the ASA have recognised that many of the claims made in this leaflet were misleading and were not capable of substantiation, we believe local people will realise that they need to look much more critically at the information put out in future by Cuadrilla and their PR machine.”

How do we think the people who have read and trusted the newsletters from Cuadrilla will react?
We are sure that local people who have read the newsletter will be very disappointed to find the extent to which it falls short of the standards of integrity that might reasonably be expected of a company which “sees itself as being part of the communities it operates within”. If Cuadrilla are seeking a social licence to operate this is not a good way of going about it.

What specifically were we objecting to in the content that made us involve the ASA?
We believed that the leaflet contained statements which were demonstrably untrue but which might still convince those who had not looked into the detail of the issues. We felt that by involving a neutral arbiter like the ASA we could highlight the discrepancies in an objective way. It is not those who Cuadrilla have dubbed “extremists” who are saying that they have mislead the public but a respected and impartial national organisation – The Advertising Standard Authority.

What response would we like to see from Cuadrilla?
Sadly, the damage has largely been done. Thousands of these leaflets have been distributed all over the Fylde. We feel that to show their integrity Cuadrilla should apologise to those who have been mislead and ensure that the information which they put out in future, whether on their website, or in publications like this, shows evidence of a much higher standard of accuracy and integrity.

Cuadrilla’s PR Management in Crisis?

And what of PPS Group, Cuadrilla’s PR advisers who work “in the tougher areas of communication“?

We asked PPS to confirm whether or not they were involved in preparing this “newsletter”, but they refused, point-blank, to answer.

We asked by email

“Can I ask you to clarify the level of involvement that PPS Group had in the preparation of Cuadrilla’s Summer 2012 newsletter?”

but all they would say was

“As you know, PPS works with Cuadrilla; beyond that, we are not minded to get involved in a detailed discussion on Cuadrilla’s processes for issuing newsletters.”

We even asked face to face at Pipers Height, but all we got was “no comment”.

However, according to the ASA , Cuadrilla did confirm in correspondence with them that PPS were the agency involved, and they are duly listed on the adjudication as “The Agency”.

We wonder why PPS were so keen to distance themselves from this particular publication when they are obviously so proud of other similar “newsletters” produced for Cuadrilla that they even feature on their promotional blurb about the PR Week award they won in 2011 for their “crisis management” work with Cuadrilla.

PPS Crisis

It is perhaps reassuring to learn that even the PR industry realise that Cuadrilla are facing a PR “crisis” of their own making, which needs management.

By the way, looking at PPS’s pictures there, isn’t that local MP Mark Menzies allowing his image to be used in pro-fracking PR yet again? That’s not very smart of him in our opinion, especially as the text of the PPS publicity here states that as a result of their efforts “Government ministers, civil servants and local MPs spoke positively about Cuadrilla and an attempt by opposition groups to stand against sitting councillors in seats close to the company’s two locations at local elections was defeated.” That does rather make it sound as though our local politicians are so weak that PR companies are able to successfully affect our democratic process doesn’t it?

Why is PPS’s involvement relevant? Well, it seems that Cuadrilla are not the first of PPS’s clients to have issued a Community Newsletter which incurred the displeasure of our friends at the ASA.

Back in 2006 Countryside Properties, who were developing an asbestos affected area in the Spodden Valley, issued a “newsletter” in an attempt to persuade rightly concerned local people of the safety of what they were doing (Now does that ring any bells?).

The ASA censured this “newsletter” for multiple transgressions in the areas of “substantiation”, “honesty” and “truthfulness”.

Private Eye reported this rather gleefully in issue 1192 as follows:

PPS Group

PPS have reacted strongly to any attempts to suggest that it was involved in the fake letter writing alleged in the Private Eye article. Their Managing Director, Stephen Byfield, allegedly told the Evening Standard “We were not involved in support letter generation, and if you even seek to imply that we were, we will sue your arse.” Given that they apparently employed Private Eye’s favourite lawyers, Messrs Carter Ruck, they obviously wished to guard their untarnished professional reputation very carefully.

Investigating the background to these allegations we did find this article quite interesting and note that it doesn’t seem to have attracted the attentions of Messrs Carter Ruck in spite of having been published nearly 6 years ago:

http://discodamaged.typepad.com/hanover/2007/08/tricker-deceit-.html

We are not going to comment further on the other allegations made by Private Eye about PPS Group’s ethics other than to say that if Francis Egan really wants to have a “fact-based conversation” about fracking, we think that he’d be well advised to get rid of his intermediaries and start to engage directly with the local people of Lancashire.

Maybe he could start by having his own staff rather than PPS employees answering the phone when people ring their “community helpline”, and maybe they could even set up their own email address instead of making people write to [email protected] if they have questions.

The level of distrust in the community is growing daily, and Cuadrilla’s insistence on hiding behind the screen of a PR company to do their “crisis management” is one of the main reasons why.

The ASA code breaches in more detail:

Refracktion complained that the statement:

“Cuadrilla uses proven, safe technologies to explore for and recover natural gas”

could not be supported by evidence.

The ASA agreed that this statement breached their code on 3 counts : Misleading, Substantiation and Exaggeration.

Refracktion complained that the statement:

The Government’s own review, published in April 2012, also concluded that it was safe to resume hydraulic fracturing [in the Bowland Basin]

was not supported by the facts

The ASA agreed that this statement breached their code on 2 counts : Misleading and Exaggeration.

Refracktion complained that the statement:

“[The report] too set out safeguards to help ensure that there will be minimal seismic activity and no prospect of any resulting damage”

could not supported by the facts

The ASA agreed that this statement breached their code on 3 counts : Misleading, Substantiation and Exaggeration.

Refracktion complained that the statement:

“This data will allow us to adjust the injection volume and rate during the fracturing procedure, managing the process to ensure that no one should notice any disturbance or even be aware of the activity”;”

could not sustained.

The ASA agreed that this statement breached their code on 3 counts : Misleading, Substantiation and Exaggeration.

Refracktion complained that the statements:

“We also know that hydraulic fracturing does not lead to contamination of the underground aquifer” and “There is ‘no evidence of aquifer contamination from hydraulic fracturing””

were demonstrably not true.

The ASA agreed that this statement breached their code on 4 counts : Misleading, Substantiation, Subjective Claims and Exaggeration.

Refracktion complained that the statement:

“Cuadrilla’s fracturing fluid does not contain hazardous or toxic components”;””

was self-evidently not true.

The ASA agreed that this statement breached their code on 2 counts : Misleading and Misleading by Omitting Material Information.

Refracktion complained that the statement:

“Our permanent site at Elswick has been quietly producing natural gas since 1993. Located just off the main road in to Elswick … The Elswick well was hydraulically fractured in 1993 and extracts gas from the sandstone formation.”

was intended to provide a falsely reassuring comparison between what had happened on a vertically fracked well and what would happen in future using horizontal fracking.

The ASA agreed that this statement breached their code on 3 counts : Misleading, Misleading by Omitting Material Information and Exaggeration.