Ineos targets 2018 for £2.5bn shale payout
INEOS hopes to begin its £2.5bn shale gas payout in 2018, following chairman Jim Ratcliffe’s pledge to give back six per cent of revenues from its shale gas business to homeowners, landowners and local communities
The chemical company intends to establish so called Ineos shale gas communities – 100 square km areas each boasting 200 fracking wells – and according to Tom Crotty, director at Ineos, each of these sites will generate revenue of around £375m. “If we are moderately successful in our plans, we can multiply the numbers up by six or seven,” he claimed.
Crotty told City A.M. that the firm aims to start extraction of gas through fracking by 2018 and added that the financial rewards “will come pretty much straight away”.
“Gas life is about 20 years, about 25 per cent of that comes out in the first year, then it settles down to a steady flow,” he explained.
Ineos is targeting the north of England and central Scotland as locations for these communities.
“We think this is something for the industrial heartlands of the UK,” said Crotty, adding that the company believes these regions have an existing skilled workforce ready to be tapped.
“These are areas that traditionally had extraction of energies, like coal, as their main industry,” Crotty stated. “This is the micro-surgery equivalent of coal-mining.”