Ground Gas Solutions
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This article is part of the Spinwatch Fracking Portal and project |
Ground Gas Solutions (GGS) is a UK environmental monitoring consultancy that is working on shale gas projects in the UK, among other projects. It describes itself as a 'specialised consultancy that has pioneered the use of continuous environmental monitoring techniques for the onshore petroleum sector'.
Contents
Activities
Environmental monitoring for Cuadrilla
Ground Gas Solutions works for Cuadrilla, the UK’s best-established hydraulic fracking firm. It provides environmental monitoring at Cuadrilla’s licensed sites around Blackpool.
Managing director Simon Talbot has says shale gas monitoring projects is an exciting new area of work for GGS. The work involves 'continuously monitoring soil gases and groundwater, with specialist sampling and lab testing to characterise the ground gases present at the site. There are a number of phases to each project, beginning with baseline monitoring to establish conditions at each site prior to shallow gas operations being carried out, and followed by continuous monitoring through into the operational drilling and hydraulic fracking phases.” [1]
Political access
Attendee at UK energy minister's May 2018 shale gas roundtable
Energy minister Claire Perry hosted a roundtable with the fracking industry in May 2018 just hours before she gave evidence to a committee of MPs on the Conservative government's proposed changes to relax the rules on shale gas development in the UK.
A 'reconstructed' attendee list was released under the freedom of information act to North Yorkshire resident Jonathan Bales following an internal review of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy's initial almost completely redacted FOI response. [2]
Oil and gas companies at the roundtable included:
- Aurora Energy, BP, Cuadrilla, IGas, Ineos, Third Energy and lobby group UK Onshore Oil and Gas.
- Service companies: Ground Gas Solutions, Marriott Drilling, Onshore Energy Service Group, Zetland Group.
- Investors and fund managers: Riverstone (a major partner in Cuadrilla), Kerogen (investor in IGas), Global Natural Resource Investments (formerly part of Barclays which invested in Third Energy), KKR, JP Morgan.
Other industries and organisations: Chemical Industries Association chemical company SABIC, Coalfield Regeneration Trust, Engineering Employers’ Federation, GMB. [3]
People
- Simon Talbot - Managing director
- Kristoffer Harries - Operations manager, previously senior geologist
- Andrew Brunton - Geo-Environmental Specialist
- Peter Warman - Innovation Manager
- Joao Dyer - Geo-Environmental Specialist
- John Naylor - Technical director
Affiliations
- All Party Parliamentary Group on Unconventional Oil and Gas - Ground Gas Solutions paid £1200 in fees as an associate member of this APPG in 2013, and £1916 in November 2015[4]
Resources
- Ground Gas's monitoring approach at onshore petroleum sites was cited in the 2013 Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM) report on Hydraulic Fracturing (Fracking) of Shale in the UK. [5]
Contact
- Website: http://www.ground-gassolutions.co.uk
Notes
- ↑ Market Insight: Consultants gear up for shale gas opportunities (part I), Environment Analyst, 7 December 2012
- ↑ What do they Know?, Shale Gas Round Table: internal review of Freedom of Information request to Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, 24 July 2018
- ↑ Ruth Hayhurst, What government told the shale gas industry about success, regulation, jobs and support, Drill or Drop, 22 October 2018, accessed same day.
- ↑ Unconventional Oil & Gas APPG, www.parliament.uk, accessed 25 November 2015
- ↑ Hydraulic Fracturing (Fracking) of Shale in the UK
