The combination of horizontal drilling and fracturing has allowed for the cost effective development of Wytch Farm, including getting oil from under Sandbanks in Dorset, the Royal Society said in a study published last year.
Perenco said there’s a distinction between the fracking carried out at Wytch Farm and way the technique is used in shale fields.
“We believe that the current public concern about fracking relates to extensive, high-pressure, hydraulic fracturing using high volumes of liquid in very low permeability rock,” the company said in a statement. “Hydraulic fracturing of this type has not been carried out at Wytch Farm.”
Wytch Farm stands next to one of England’s most environmentally sensitive areas, Poole Harbor, deemed a site of special scientific interest for its geology and wildlife. The area on the Isle of Purbeck is also home to dinosaur fossils that made it a Unesco World Natural Heritage site.
Coastal Landforms
“There is a particularly superb development of beautiful coastal landforms on the Isle of Purbeck,” Unesco said in a December 2009 report.
Tourism in Poole and Purbeck accounted for about quarter of 1.5 billion pounds spent by visitors in the Dorset county in 2011, according to the South West Research Co. data. The local landscape was painted by J.M.W Turner in the 19th century.
“The U.K. needs to be self-sufficient in its energy,” said Adrian Dunford, a principal at Tailor Made estate agency at Sandbanks, where one waterfront house lists for 7.25 million pounds. “There’s always been oil production here. There is no negativity to what’s going on.”