Protesters from the UK's anti-fracking network Frack Off have invaded a test drilling site in Lancashire and occupied its drilling rig.
A group of nine people ran on to the site operated by Cuadrilla Resources at Hesketh Bank near Preston before dawn and used climbing equipment to clamber up the metal structure. They have fixed themselves on top and said that they plan to stay as long as possible. Other protesters are expected to hold a rally at 3pm outside the site.
The group's Twitter account @Frack_off has issued pictures of the action which follows a stunt at Blackpool Tower in August. The protest has been timed to coincide with the Shale Gas Environmental Summit organised by exploration companies and others which starts today in London.
One of the climbers, Colin Eastman says:
Conventional fossil fuels have begun to run out and the system is moving towards more extreme forms of energy like fracking, tar sands, and deep water drilling.
The move towards 'extreme energy' is literally scrapping the bottom of the barrel, sucking the last most difficult to reach fossil fuels from the planet at a time when we should be rapidly reducing our consumption altogether and looking for sustainable alternatives.
In the UK fracking for shale gas is planned alongside, not instead of, extraction of conventional fossil fuels like coal.
Fracking is industry shorthand for hydraulic fracturing which involves the forcing of a mixture of water, sand and chemicals into the ground at high pressure, cracking shale rock and releasing the gas There has been concern about possible water pollution and other risks although data is uncertain.
Geological conditions in much of Lancashire are reckoned suitable for the process by the industry and there has been talk of up to 800 wells being drilled in the county. Onshore drilling has been rare in the UK, where the first small and short-lived enterprise, extracting oil, was in the 1920s at Tibshelf in Derbyshire, now better-known as a service station on the M1.
