UK player IGas Energy has come up short of finding the targeted shale formation at its project at Tinker Lane in northern England, but will continue exploring the site, writes Anamaria Deduleasa.

The TL-1 exploration well in North Nottinghamshire did not encounter the primary Bowland shale target, although it did find traces of shales.

“The drilling operations were completed significantly ahead of schedule, largely as a result of improved drilling performance. The well... encountered a shale interval before penetrating the key Dinantian limestone geophysical marker,” IGas said.

However, “the shales encountered did not include the primary target, the Bowland shale”, the company said.

IGas will now carry out a comprehensive logging programme, aiming to better understand the basin’s geological setting.

“Whilst the results of this well will help calibrate our geological models of the region and has demonstrated further improvements in drilling performance, we are naturally disappointed not to have encountered the Bowland shale,” chief executive Stephen Bowler said.

“The outcome of this exploration well does not change our view on the prospectivity of our next target well at Springs Road, where we believe a thick section of shale is present due to its more central location in the basin and which we expect to spud in the first quarter of 2019,” Bowler added.

IGas has permission to drill one well at Tinker Lane and two at nearby Springs Road. It has not yet applied for permission to hydraulically fracture either well, previously saying it will do so only “if coring and reservoir characteristics are supportive of its existing geological model”.

Tinker Lane is being developed in partnership with chemicals giant Ineos, and Spring Road is being developed in partnership with French major Total.

While shale gas exploration has been heavily supported by the UK government, local communities have been protesting and launching lawsuits in an attempt to stop the use of hydraulic fracturing.

This week, environmental group Friends of the Earth went to the Royal Courts of Justice to argue against the government’s fracking policy.

The judicial review argued the government failed to take into account scientific developments, which call into question the “low carbon” claims the government has put forward in support of fracking.

The only company currently fracking in England is Cuadrilla Resources, which started hydraulic fracturing work at Preston New Road in Lancashire a few months ago.

However, Cuadrilla has had to repeatedly pause operations amid multiple earth tremors, ranging between 0.1 magnitude and 1.5 magnitude.

The "traffic light" safety system, which the company argues is “too conservative”, means that work has to be halted for 18 hours if a tremor of 0.5 magnitude or more is recorded.

This week, the largest seismic event reached 0.9 magnitude, and occurred during hydraulic fracturing operations.

As a result, the company had to pause operations for a minimum of 18 hours, suspend pumping and injection activities and reduce well pressure.

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IGas fails to hit target but continues search