Francis Egan is cautiously hoping that the mood may finally be turning his way. The 60-year-old is chief executive of a company whose work in the UK has, effectively, been banned for more than two years. 

Cuadrilla was at the forefront of the efforts in the UK to pump natural gas out of shale rocks, or fracking, until the Government imposed a moratorium in 2019 for the second time – officially due to concerns about the earthquake risk.

Turmoil on international energy markets triggered by Russia’s war on Ukraine, however, is triggering an urgent rethink on the importance of domestic supplies. Soaring wholesale energy prices are set to hammer households. Fracking is back – on the agenda at least. 

Sir David Frost, the former Brexit negotiator, is among politicians calling for a rethink, while the Prime Minister wants his ministers to reconsider its potential. In a marked change of tone, the business department said on Wednesday it was “considering all options” ahead of a new energy strategy. 

It comes just as Cuadrilla’s two wells in Lancashire were about to be sealed up for good. “It’s clear that the UK must do everything it can to secure domestic gas supply and not tolerate Putin’s vice-like grip over our energy costs,” Egan said in a statement on Wednesday. “I await contact from the business department to confirm these reports.”

The shift reopens the debate over a controversial industry many campaigners thought had just about been defeated. Coming less than six months after the Cop 26 climate change conference, it is a striking sign of Russia’s war starkly shifting the thinking on energy policy. 

Whether the UK’s fracking industry will ever return in practice remains very much in doubt, however, with many hurdles ahead even if the moratorium were ended. 

Fracking involves pumping a mixture of water, sand and chemicals into rocks to release trapped gas or oil. It has been used in conventional wells in the UK since the 1970s, but using it on shale rocks is more intensive. 

The US started producing gas from shale rocks commercially in the early 2000s, helping it become a net exporter of natural gas in 2017. Replicating that in the UK is complicated, however. 

The British Geological Survey has estimated there is 1,329 trillion cubic feet of shale gas trapped in rocks ranging from Scotland to Sussex. Industry argues the Bowland area alone, covering much of the Midlands and northern England, could make the UK self-sufficient in gas demand by the mid-2030s, requiring thousands of wells.