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industry & Government news

FRACKING FIRM CUADRILLA TO PERMANENTLY

ABANDON UK SHALE GAS SITES

THE OWNER OF the shale fracking
company Cuadrilla will permanently
plug and abandon its two shale wells in
Lancashire, reports The Guardian.
Cuadrilla set out plans to
permanently seal the two shale gas
wells drilled at the Preston New Road
Lancashire shale exploration site a little
over two years after the government
brought an end to fracking in England.
Francis Egan, Chief Executive of
Cuadrilla, said the government’s oil
and gas regulator had ordered the
“ridiculous” shutdown of the wells in the
northern Bowland Shale gas formation
despite Europe’s gas supply crisis.
“At a time when the UK is spending
billions of pounds annually importing
gas from all corners of the globe, and gas
prices for hard-pressed UK households
are rocketing, the UK government has
chosen this moment to ask us to plug
and abandon the only two viable shale
gas wells in Britain,” Egan said.
The UK’s failed shale industry has
consistently argued that fracking could
help to secure gas supplies, but the
claims have been disputed by others
who have said shale gas would not help
to lower UK energy bills.
According to The Guardian, the Oil
and Gas Authority (OGA) originally
called for the wells to be shut down last CUADRILLA HAS CALLED TIME ON UK SHALE
summer and gave Cuadrilla until June
this year to complete the work. years of bitter opposition from climate warned the practice could not be
The government brought in a de campaigners and local protest groups carried out safely without the risk of
facto ban on fracking in late 2019 after as a study by the industry regulator triggering earth tremors.

UK ENERGY SECTOR TOP TARGET FOR CYBERATTACKS, IBM FINDS

THE UK’S ENERGY sector was the cost of cyberattacks trickle down to multifactor authentication on every
target of 24 per cent of all cybersecurity consumers, with this coming at a time remote access point into a network,
incidents in the country last year, new of increased pressure on the energy adopting a layered approach to
research from IBM Security has found. industry and rising energy costs combat phishing, refining and
This makes the energy sector the for consumers as a result of Ofgem maturing vulnerability management
most targeted industry, followed by the increasing the price cap. systems and developing a response
manufacturing and financial services There is therefore an urgent need plan for ransomware.
sectors, which each received 19 per cent for robust cyber resiliency in the Laurance Dine, Global Partner,
of all attacks, according to Current±. energy industry alongside the other X-Force Incident Response, IBM, said:
In 2021, the UK became one of the critical industries most targeted, “Businesses must start operating
top three most attacked countries in the report said, detailing several under the assumption of compromise,
Europe, IBM Security’s 2022 X Force recommendations organisations can putting the proper controls in place
Threat Intelligence Index found, along take to better secure their networks to defend their environment and
with Germany and Italy. from cyber threats. protect critical data.”
The report highlighted how the These include implementing Ransomware has accounted for

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