A bagpiper plays from the prow of the JS Ineon Insight ship carrying the first shipment of shale gas from the United States as it arrives to dock at Grangemouth in Scotland yesterday.
GRANGEMOUTH: Britain’s first shale gas delivery from the United States sailed into a heated European political debate on fracking yesterday and immediately ran into its first practical problem — the Scottish weather.
The huge “Ineos Insight” tanker had entered the Firth of Forth at sunrise, a lone Scots piper playing on its bow, as it headed for the Grangemouth refinery, west of Edinburgh. But gusty squalls prevented it from unloading its controversial cargo before an assembled crowd of dignitaries. “The Insight vessel was unable to dock at the port due to high winds,” said a spokesman for Zurich-based chemicals giant Ineos. It would arrive at the port as soon as wind died down, he added.
Ship tracking data on Reuters showed the vessel had turned back into deeper waters. Ineos is importing ethane, obtained from rocks fractured at high pressure, or “fracking”, in a foretaste of larger deliveries of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from shale set to reach Europe in 2018.
Environmentalists say the technique causes problems including pollution of the water table, and attempts to set up fracking operations in England have run into stiff opposition. Scotland’s devolved government imposed a moratorium on fracking last year.
Scotland’s devolved government imposed a moratorium on fracking last year and Britain’s opposition Labour party said this week it would ban it if the party were elected in 2020. Ineos Chairman Jim Ratcliffe argues that as the North Sea is unable to keep supplying the base ingredients to make chemicals at Grangemouth, shale gas will be an important future energy resource.
