Nitrogen

Shale gas company Cuadrilla has applied to the Environment Agency to allow a new chemical in its bid to extract gas from under the Lancashire countryside.The firm, which is preparing to resume fracking at its Preston New Road site near Little Plumpton, has asked permission to use nitrogen gas under pressure to better extract natural gas from the deep-lying shale rock.It has announced it will frack the second of its two drilled wells at the site, sometime after next month.The Environment Agency has confirmed that Cuadrilla has asked to vary its permit to allow the use of ‘nitrogen lifting.’