The UK’s shale carrot
Will paying people to like fracking change the outlook for UK gas?
PRIME minister Theresa May's new government wants to make fracking more palatable for the public by offering up to £1bn ($1.3bn) in payments to them over the next 25 years. The Shale Wealth Fund (SWF), announced on 8 August, would use up to 10% of tax revenues from future shale gas production and give the funds to the public. The crucial difference between the SWF and previous government pledges to compensate for shale gas development is that now the money will go straight to individual households - not handed out to local authorities. The SWF even betters a previous shale gas compensation pledge from petrochemical giant Ineos - which wants to drill for shale gas - to pay local communities 6
Also in this section
18 February 2026
With marketable supply unlikely to grow significantly and limited scope for pipeline imports, Brazil is expected to continue relying on LNG to cover supply shortfalls, Ieda Gomes, senior adviser of Brazilian thinktank FGV Energia,
tells Petroleum Economist
17 February 2026
The 25th WPC Energy Congress, taking place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia from 26–30 April 2026, will bring together leaders from the political, industrial, financial and technology sectors under the unifying theme “Pathways to an Energy Future for All”
17 February 2026
Siemens Energy has been active in the Kingdom for nearly a century, evolving over that time from a project-based foreign supplier to a locally operating multi-national company with its own domestic supply chain and workforce
17 February 2026
Eni’s chief operating officer for global natural resources, Guido Brusco, takes stock of the company’s key achievements over the past year, and what differentiates its strategy from those of its peers in the LNG sector and beyond
