History

Hydraulic fracturing stimulation was first used in Kansas, US in 1947. Since then, over 2.5 million fracture treatments have taken place globally. Significantly, 60% of onshore natural-gas production comes from hydraulically fractured wells.

Hydraulic fracturing has taken place for decades in the UK, with the first treatment thought to have taken place in the mid-1970s. Our site in Elswick was fractured in 1993, and has been generating around 1MW of electricity since.

Hydraulic fracturing is common in the North Sea, where it has been performed thousands of times.