Lancashire fracking spend at £4.7m

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The Bamber Bridge-based company said spend in the Lancashire economy has increased to £4.7m.

This was broken down into £3.98m in direct spend plus £788,000 as indirect spend via Cuadrilla’s suppliers to their own suppliers and sub-contractors.

In its latest Putting Lancashire First commitments tracker which the company publishes to prove how shale gas can help the economy, it said the spend up to September 30 had risen from the previous £2.9m spent by the end of June.

It said since it started operations at its Preston New Road site in January, a total of 51 full time and contract jobs have been created, plus five apprenticeships, more than doubling the number of jobs created by Cuadrilla in Lancashire since December 2016.

In addition, following the commencement of the first well being drilled at its site in Lancashire, Cuadrilla has also made the first community benefits payment of £100,000 to an independent Community Benefit Fund which will be distributed to projects in the area.

Francis Egan, CEO of Cuadrilla, said: “These latest figures clearly show that the work at our Preston New Road exploration site continues to create significant investment in and jobs for the Lancashire economy.

“In addition the local community will also directly benefit from our operations with the first payment of £100,000 to the Community Benefit Fund.

“We are very proud to be the first British onshore shale gas operator to make this happen.”

The tracker figures have been independently verified by Danbro Accounting in Lytham.

The next tracker will be released in January with figures to 31st December 2017.

The firm is currently drilling two wells at Preston New road and is set to drill horizontally in preparation for the actual fracking process which is expected to take place early next year.

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