Thornton-le-Dale gas plant bid fuels a rich seam of dissent

What might surprise you, however, is that Ryedale itself is a significant producer of natural gas: and that the quiet village of Thornton-le-Dale is at the centre of a furious row over proposals for a £10 million gas processing plant.

The Ryedale district straddles a petro-carbon seam that runs from Morecambe Bay through to Poland and there are three fields still operating – at Malton, Kirby Misperton and Pickering.

These fields are relatively small and the gas they produce is used primarily for generating electricity. However, there are also larger, still untapped deposits, where it is feasible to export the gas direct into the National Grid.

Moorland Energy, the oil and gas exploration and production company, wants to build a facility south of Thornton which will clean natural gas from the company’s Ebberston South Well before exporting it into the National Transmission System.

The well and a short section of a nine kilometre pipeline fall within the North York Moors National Park, and therefore permission is being sought from the park authorities.

On April 1, Moorland Energy sought consent for the rest of the project from North Yorkshire County Council, whose decision is expected next February. The North York Moors National Park ruling will follow.

If the proposal gets the blessing of both the national park and county council, construction would start next year, and the site will be fully operational by 2013.

Opponents, many of them living in Thornton-le-Dale itself, are literally AGHAST! – the name of a pressure group formed to fight the proposals which stands for Against Having Sour Gas in Thornton. Too costly, they say. Too little learning from past mistakes. Too little return to justify the destruction of our most valued landscapes.

Nonsense, say the scheme’s supporters. It’s needed. For local jobs. To contribute to national energy.

So who is right?

For: Moorland Energy

FOR more than 40 years, most of Britain’s natural gas supplies have come from the North Sea, making us more or less self-sufficient in terms of energy. But those days are now gone. The North Sea fields are depleted and increasing volumes of gas are being bought on the spot market and then imported.

A report earlier this year by The Energy Contract Company, calculates the glut of gas on the market – which has helped to depress prices – is due to end around 2015.

These long-term trends make Britain increasingly vulnerable to sharp price fluctuations, or even sudden interruptions in supply of the kind experienced recently by the Ukraine and Belarus. In recognition of the imperative for Britain to maximise production of gas from her own reserves, the Government has pledged to instruct OFGEM to establish a security guarantee of energy supplies. Looking ahead, Ryedale’s importance as an area of gas production is set to grow.

Moorland Energy’s Ryedale Gas Project involves building a pipeline to link Moorland’s Ebberston South well site, east of Pickering, to the National Transmission System, via a gas processing facility outside Thornton-le-Dale.

Moorland’s chief executive, Lawrie Erasmus, predicts that the Ryedale Gas Project will make a significant contribution to the UK’s energy needs. He says that output could reach a peak of 40 million standard cubic feet (scf) – enough to meet the annual energy requirements of some 1,600 homes.

“To put this into a local context, even at a conservative long-term average daily production rate of only ten million scf, it will take less than 3.5 days for our production to supply the combined annual energy needs of the villages of Thornton-le-Dale, Allerston, Ebberston and Wilton.

“This demonstrates why we simply cannot afford not to develop our gas reserves.”

Moorland also quotes Malcolm Webb, chief executive of Oil & Gas UK: “Britain’s indigenous oil and gas industry is a vital engine for growth as the economy emerges from recession. Our annual capital investment (£6 billion or so this year) is more than any other industrial sector and our annual spend of more than £13 billion feeds straight into the economy.”

The Ryedale Gas Project – if approved by the planners – is predicted to generate up to 25 jobs and more than £10 million at today’s prices for the local economy over the next 20 years.

“Gas production is already an important part of the local economy,” Mr Erasmus says. “And its size is set to increase significantly as rising prices encourage further exploration.”

Against: Adam White, chairman of AGHAST!

Surrey firm Moorland Energy wants to build a gas processing refinery at Thornton-le-Dale, widely regarded as one of Yorkshire’s prettiest villages.

It says that its gas works will produce up to 12 million kWh of energy, but offers no data to back up this estimate. Experience shows that gas well production tends to rise quickly to a peak, before tailing off considerably over the well’s lifetime.

The raw (sour) gas would be processed to remove contaminants such as highly toxic hydrogen sulphide. Leaks of this poison at gas refineries have been the cause of several fatalities worldwide. The refinery, on the edge of a village with nearly 2,000 residents, would be officially classed as a Major Accident Hazard.

Options do exist to make use of these local gas resources without the necessity to build a processing plant, but these wouldn’t be as profitable for the developer.

In a national context, the amount of gas produced by Moorland’s refinery (even when running flat out) would be utterly insignificant at one tenth of one percent of national gas usage. In planning terms, the proposals aren’t large enough to be classed as Nationally Significant Infrastructure.

When considering any contribution to national supplies, it must be remembered that the European gas market is open, and Moorland Energy remains free to export its gas abroad, should it be in its financial interests.

Local people will remember the experience of the Pickering gas processing plant, which opened to a fanfare in 1971, only to be demolished in 1974 as gas production rates were nothing like those hoped for.

The land on which that refinery stood remains contaminated 40 years later, and Moorland Energy would now like to commandeer another green field from the edge of the North York Moors National Park, to have another go.

North Sea gas is by no means dead in the water, and should remain the primary focus for domestic energy supplies. Only this April, Endeavour International announced a new gas find just north of Norfolk amounting to two trillion cubic feet – dwarfing Moorland’s highest claims of gas reserves more than 20 times over.

Nationally, we are not so desperate for gas that we must turn to the destruction of our most valued landscapes such as here on the edge of the National Park, in order to keep the lights on.

Frost and icicles only add to Thornton Le Dale’s allure. MATT CLARK visited the snowbound village to discover what residents think of the gas plant scheme

JOHN Bywood retired here for the peace and serenity. But he fears the tranquility could soon be shattered by increased goods traffic on the main road, 40ft-high pipes that will emit fumes 24 hours a day – not to mention the arc lights needed to floodlight the plant at night.

“The feeling in the village is very strong; certainly 99 per cent I would say are against it,” he says.

“My personal feeling is that there is a Government policy to back big business. But this will be a sour gas system and it will damage tourism. The company’s technical people claim there will be no smell whatever, but take the very title of the thing. They’re giving verbal reassurances but they are not assurances we believe.”

John has been to all the meetings in the village hall, but at the last one they did not invite the planning people. That, he says, is nothing short of ridiculous.

“The people behind it are from Surrey, they all live in Surrey so it’s irrelevant to them. We don’t dispute the need for gas; we just think this would be the wrong place. They say it has to be near the well head which is near Thornton, but there are other places they could do this and they shouldn’t be choosing a site just for commercial convenience.”

Alan Monkhouse agrees. Like John, he moved here 15 years ago for the same reasons.

“The AGHAST campaign is about writing letters and lobbying MPs but I don’t think there is a prayer of stopping it. I think it’s been decided that this is going to happen. They are going through the motions because they have to go through this consultation process but it’s meaningless, it’s not going to make a ha’pence of difference, so there is no point having one.”

It’s not only retired folk who are up in arms. Seventeen year old Jessica Atkinson also thinks the plant is a bad idea for her home village. Jessica works in one of the quintessentially English tea shops and she thinks their old-world image would be tarnished for good.

“I don’t think we’ll get as much trade because the plant will put people off coming. I really don’t understand why they have to build it here; there are plenty of other places, so why choose a picturesque village like this?

“I hope they don’t because I can’t think of any benefits. They say they will listen to us but I’m not sure. I think it should be stopped, but no one seems to be listening.”

A spokesman for Moorland Energy accepted that there were Thornton residents opposed to the proposals.

“But it is completely untrue to claim that these opponents comprise 99 per cent of the population,” he said. “When the parish council conducted a survey… only 40 per cent of households were motivated to respond. Of these, some 80 per cent were against – only 32 per cent of the population. The conclusion to be drawn is that two thirds of the village are therefore either supportive or have no particular view either way.

“Given the amount of misleading information that has been peddled, it is amazing that more people are not against the proposals. There is a national need to use our domestic natural resources. The development of these reserves will bring economic benefits to the inhabitants of Thornton and surrounding areas and provide employment for many years to come.”