THE company behind controversial plans to extract gas from coal under the River Forth has abandoned them and is to concentrate its activity outside of Scotland.
Cluff Natural Resources (CLNR) made the announcement in an update to shareholders, saying that while it was confident the Scottish Government moratorium on underground coal gasification (UCG) would be lifted, “it has stopped all expenditure related to the Kincardine Project”.
The news was immediately welcomed by environmental group WWF Scotland, whose director, Lang Banks, told The National: “This news represents a massive victory for all those who have campaigned long and hard to halt Cluff’s daft coal-burning plans.
“However, we’ll only be fully satisfied when the company hands back its licences.
“The science is clear. To protect our climate the vast majority of fossil fuel reserves must remain unburned. In a worst case scenario, proposals such as these could even extend our use of fossil fuels, locking us into a high-carbon world.
“Burning coal under the sea should have no place in Scotland’s energy future, which is why the Scottish Government was right to extend its moratorium on unconventional gas extraction to include underground coal gasification.
“We hope in time this moratorium will become an outright ban.”
CLNR said it had opted to shift its focus from UCG in Scotland following the extension of the Scottish Government’s moratorium on fracking to cover UCG, which was put in place last October.
This had been put in place despite “previous assurances the company had received from the Scottish Government”, said the company, and would remain pending a government study and public consultation that was expected to conclude next spring.
“While the company is confident that the evidence in relation to UCG will result in the moratorium being lifted, it has stopped all expenditure related to the Kincardine project and is now focussing its attention outside of Scotland, in particular the north east of England, where the company believes the political situation is more favourable with regards to UCG and considerable support exists for investment in energy and industry with a view to regeneration,” it said.
“CLNR has a total of nine UCG licences in the UK of which six are based in England and Wales and are therefore not subject to the moratorium.”
The Kincardine project has been dogged by controversy, with opponents seeing Fife as a guinea pig for the process, which is largely untested. UCG involves drilling a borehole into a coal seam below the sea bed, flushing it with oxygen, then igniting it with a burner to extract the gas.
Fife Council had pushed Westminster to refuse to grant further licences in Scotland and for Holyrood to include it in its fracking moratorium.
A research consultancy had claimed the industry had the potential to create nearly 12,000 jobs directly and indirectly around the country, and contribute more than £600 million to the economy.
In August, before the moratorium was extended, CLNR chairman and chief executive Algy Cluff told The National he had not ruled out moving such projects offshore in the future.
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