The Telegraph is reporting that Shell will shun UK shale gas development:
Simon Henry, Shell’s chief financial officer, said it had already allocated more than $6bn (£3.8bn) to shale globally and was not going to exceed that sum.
“We have a successful and growing business in North America, we have great opportunities in China, Ukraine and Russia,” he said. “The UK has to compete directly with them and right now nobody even knows whether the gas will flow.”
“Do we want to be first in and be in the headlines every day in the UK? Well, your answer is: we are not,” he said.
We appear to find ourselves in something of a Catch 22 situation. Nobody will invest in the new generating capacity that the government wants because nobody believes that the government policy of institutionalised insanity will last - taxpayers will not bear the kind of price rises that Davey wants to impose on everyone. But while the government is insisting that insanity is the way forward, nobody is going to invest in the UK energy industry at all.