AFP, Grangemouth :
A tanker carrying the first shipment of shale gas from the United States arrived on Tuesday in Britain, where there are currently no commercial fracking operations because of fierce public opposition.
The ship arrived at Grangemouth, a sprawling energy complex on the River Forth near Edinburgh in Scotland, where the North Sea offshore oil and gas reserves are becoming too costly to extract.
The carrier, transporting 27,500 cubic metres of ethane, was given a traditional Scottish welcome, passing under the Forth’s iconic 19th century steel rail bridge as a lone bagpiper played from the ship.
A o2 billion (2.3 billion euros, $2.6 billion) investment by Ineos, the world’s third largest chemical company, will create a “virtual pipeline” with eight tankers transporting regular shipments across the Atlantic to Britain and Norway.
The gas from Pennsylvania will replace dwindling offshore supplies which once flowed in abundance from the North Sea but have become increasingly difficult to extract as wells have matured.
North Sea oil production hit a record low last year as the global oil price plummeted.
A new shipment of gas will arrive every three weeks at Grangemouth, where it will be broken down using a chemical process called “cracking” and used to make plastics for bottles, pipes, cabling, insulation, food packaging and pharmaceutical equipment.
A tanker carrying the first shipment of shale gas from the United States arrived on Tuesday in Britain, where there are currently no commercial fracking operations because of fierce public opposition.
The ship arrived at Grangemouth, a sprawling energy complex on the River Forth near Edinburgh in Scotland, where the North Sea offshore oil and gas reserves are becoming too costly to extract.
The carrier, transporting 27,500 cubic metres of ethane, was given a traditional Scottish welcome, passing under the Forth’s iconic 19th century steel rail bridge as a lone bagpiper played from the ship.
A o2 billion (2.3 billion euros, $2.6 billion) investment by Ineos, the world’s third largest chemical company, will create a “virtual pipeline” with eight tankers transporting regular shipments across the Atlantic to Britain and Norway.
The gas from Pennsylvania will replace dwindling offshore supplies which once flowed in abundance from the North Sea but have become increasingly difficult to extract as wells have matured.
North Sea oil production hit a record low last year as the global oil price plummeted.
A new shipment of gas will arrive every three weeks at Grangemouth, where it will be broken down using a chemical process called “cracking” and used to make plastics for bottles, pipes, cabling, insulation, food packaging and pharmaceutical equipment.
