(Alliance News) - The UK's only shale gas wells will not be sealed up at the end of June after regulators lifted an order for them to be capped.
Fracking firm Cuadrilla had been under instruction to plug its wells in Lancashire, England by the end of June 2022.
But the North Sea Transition Authority said the firm now had until the end of June 2023 to evaluate options for the Preston New Road and Elswick sites.
The move comes ahead of the publication of the government's delayed energy strategy, with Boris Johnson under pressure from Tory MPs to end a moratorium on fracking.
Cuadrilla Chief Executive Francis Egan said: "I would like to thank the prime minister and the business secretary for seeing the light and realising – just in time – how absurd it would have been to force us to pour concrete down Britain's only two viable shale gas wells in the middle of an energy crisis.
"But this suspension will have a cul-de-sac ending unless we now reverse the moratorium preventing us from using the wells (and others like them) to get shale gas out of the ground and flowing into British households."
The NSTA said Cuadrilla applied for consent to keep its wells on March 28.
"The North Sea Transition Authority has looked carefully at this application, alongside recent developments, and agreed to withdraw the requirement to decommission the wells by the end of June," the regulator said.
"Cuadrilla now have until the end of June next year to evaluate options for the Preston New Road and Elswick sites.
"If no credible re-use plans are in place by then, the North Sea Transition Authority expects to reimpose decommissioning requirements. "
By David Hughes, PA Political Editor
source: PA
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