THIRD Energy has submitted a detailed plan to the Environment Agency outlining how it intends to carry out hydraulic fracturing safely from its well in North Yorkshire.

The submission of the Hydraulic Fracture Plan (HFP) to the government agency is one of the final stages of preparation for the company. The plan details how it will go ahead with extracting shale gas trapped in rock formations, thousands of feet below the ground at Kirby Misperton in North Yorkshire.

The plan also has to be submitted to the Oil and Gas Authority (OGA) and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) for approval, before the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change will allow fracking to proceed at the company’s Ryedale site.

Fracking involves pumping water, sand and chemicals at high pressure into a well to fracture 2.5 million year old rock formations and release the gas inside.

But in order to avoid a repeat of the earth tremors which stopped hydraulic fracturing at Preese Hall in Lancashire, in 2011, the government now requires fracking companies to submit detailed preventative measures and calculations showing how the process will avoid causing earth tremors and how the company will ensure frack fluid doesn’t reach the nearest underground water aquifer or contaminate groundwater.

The government will only give approval once it is satisfied these calculations will prevent contamination or earthquakes.

John Dewar said the plan was the last step in a “long, thorough and detailed process”.

Monitors above and below the surface will be placed within a 3km radius of the hole and at local buildings such as churches. They will be picking up seismic movement and vibration and calculating where it comes from. The information will be fed into a software model which calculates the magnitude of what happened down the well.

Third Energy’s operations director, John Dewar said the monitors are so sensitive, they have already picked up minor earth tremors in Japan.

If earth tremors of 0.5 on the Richter scale are picked up by the sensors, the operation will shut down, the frack fluid in circulation will be taken out of the ground and the OGA, HSE and EA notified. Depending on the cause of the tremor and outcome of the investigation, the procedure can then continue again with adjustments.

John Dewar said they will be measuring at a scale that can’t be felt by humans.

“We’re trying to prevent disturbance and damage. A tremor of 0.5 on the Richter scale will be well away from the level people will feel it, or a level where there might be damage,” he said.

“We’ll be measuring at a scale that can’t be felt by humans.

“We would stop at below the level which people feel vibration every day. Just tremors equivalent to cars going past on the road would force us to shut down. Not just a little shutdown.

“The most important thing the government is concerned about is making sure there’s no disturbance at the surface, disturbance to people or damage to people.”

Fracking in the vertical well will start at a point 7,000ft below ground, with the deepest frack 10,000ft below ground. At these lower levels the well is just 8.5 inches wide.

The company is responsible for everything that happens within a 6km radius of the fracking well, 3,000ft above the fractures and 3,000ft below. At lower levels the well is just 8.5 inches wide.

John Dewar said the preparation and plan was to allow a test frack to be carried out at the lowest depth of the site, which will last a couple of hours.

“The KM8 site is the most heavily monitored real estate on the planet.”