Cuadrilla Resources, the first company drilling for shale gas in the UK, has rejected shadow energy minister Huw Irranca-Davies' call for a temporary ban on shale gas and coalbed methane exploration.
The member of parliament from the opposition Labour party Thursday revealed he had written to Minister of State for Energy Charles Hendry urging a moratorium while environmental concerns over hydro-fracking techniques were studied.
UK-based Cuadrilla said late Thursday that it had contacted Irranca-Davies and wanted to meet him to discuss his concerns. "We would be delighted to show Mr Irranca-Davies around our sites so that he can witness at first hand the best practice procedures we have in place," the company said.
Cuadrilla says it has around 200 years of cumulative experience in its team, including drilling and/or fracture stimulation of more than 3,000 wells.
"The potential risks associated with shale gas exploration are not unique and are common to all hydrocarbon exploration," it said. "Shale gas exploration techniques, including directional drilling and fracking, are conventional and have been used across the wider oil and gas industry (including previously in the UK) for many decades."
The company said its fracking fluid was 99.7% water and sand. The remainder is a friction-reducing compound commonly found in contact lenses, a weak hydrochloric acid used in drinking water wells and in some swimming pools, and a biocide used at low concentration.
A previous statement from Cuadrilla had not mentioned the biocide, and the company said in its new statement Thursday that it might not be used.
"This will be used if and only if the domestic water from United Utilities is not pure enough. But if it is sufficiently pure the biocide will not be used," Cuadrilla said.
The company said it had submitted evidence to the House of Commons energy committee's inquiry into shale gas. And it said the new industry could offer improved energy security and new business opportunities for the UK.
Irranca-Davies's letter to the government urging a halt to fracking work follows the publication this month of a report from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change that said no shale work should take place in the UK until the end of 2012, when a US Environmental Protection Agency report into the topic will produce its first results.
One supporter of the report said there were concerns that even if individual wells were drilled responsibly, a full-scale industry could require hundreds of wells, and the odds were that some would go wrong.
Shale gas production has become an important part of the US gas industry in recent years, although it is now the subject of much environmental debate there. In Europe the industry is still at a much earlier stage of its development, and public awareness is also much lower.
The subject has risen up the agenda in the UK in January after the launch of the Tyndall Centre's report, coinciding with a visit to the UK by Josh Fox, director of Oscar-nominated anti-shale gas documentary Gasland.
