Protesters have brought work at a gas exploration site on Merseyside to a halt as they stepped up demonstrations against the controversial methods used to extract energy.
The move came as Cuadrilla Resources published a long-awaited report, undertaken by independent experts, concluding that it was "highly probable" that its fracking had caused two small earthquakes earlier this year.
Four members of the environmental campaign group Frack Off unfurled banners after climbing a rig at the Cuadrilla site at Banks, near Southport, at around 5.30am on Wednesday. Others remained on the ground.
In a separate protest as part of a day of action against the controversial extraction method, 50 anti-fracking activists gathered outside the Copthorne Tara hotel in Kensington, west London, from around 3pm in an attempt to disrupt an industry conference organised by SMI international.
Demonstrators dressed in yellow fire hazard suits they shouted chants including: "Flaming water from out tap, we don't want this Fracking crap."
Two dozen police kept demonstrators away from the conference, taking place on the hotel's first floor, which cost £1,500 a delegate. One activist with a bottle of "fracked" water made it as far as the hotel entrance before being moved away by officers.
The conference organiser, Kate Walters, said officials had been aware of the protests for a number of weeks and had hired private security. She said the event included environmental groups as well as industry representatives.
Protester Zoe Powell, a 22-year-old from Brighton, said fracking was detrimental to people's health, adding: "It's coming here [to the UK] now and most people don't seem to be aware."
Objections to shale operations focus on potential water contamination owing to the chemicals pumped into the ground with water to hydraulically fracture, or "frack", and release the hydrocarbons.
Cuadrilla suspended fracking operations during the inquiry into minor quakes in Lancashire.
A spokeswoman for Lancashire police said: "Police are in attendance and a cordon has been put in place around the site. We are liaising with the site owners and the protesters to bring about a peaceful resolution."
A spokesman for the company, which recently found huge reserves in north-west England, said they were assessing the situation.
Colin Eastman, one of the protesters who scaled the rig, said: "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 scraping 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."
