Ann: UK Regulator Withdraws Notice to P&A PNR Wells, page-39

They have had 18 months to review them - clearly the government does not believe they provide the evidence they have said is required to allow the moratorium to be lifted. I get why you are hoping but look what is happening in the real world.

The government has two reasons for appearing to be giving shale some breathing space. Firstly if they ban it outright there are presumably some risks of litigation, and secondly there are about 25 lunatics at the right of the Conservative party who, fresh from having b******ed the country with their Brexit, think they can now do the same with Net Zero Watch. They area small but noisy distraction. Johnson has to try to manage them away from being a disruptive influence on his already very shaky hold on government so he is drip-feeding hope to them. Not a great long term plan but he is a politician who survives from day to day, not a strategist. He will lose them eventually but while he gives them a glimmer of hope they won't bring him down.

Today we will see the IPCC report published. This will advise a rapid shift from fossil fuels over the next 8 years, and will get a lot of attention just as Johnson has to outline his own energy strategy over the next few days.

Rest assured that here is absolutely no way on God's green earth that he is about to give fracking in the UK the go ahead in the same week as that IPPC report comes out. I would be political suicide.