Hydraulic fracturing in the United Kingdom  Hydraulic fracturing in the United Kingdom started in the late 1970s with fracturing of the conventional oil and gas fields of the North Sea. It has been used in about 200 British onshore oil and gas wells since the early 1980s. The technique did not attract attention until licences use were awarded for onshore shale gas exploration in 2008. In the United Kingdom, as in other countries—and in particular the United States, where the industry is most advanced and widespread, hydraulic fracturing has generated a large amount of controversy. Although hydraulic fracturing is often used synonymously to refer to shale gas and other unconventional oil and gas sources, it is not always correct to associate it with unconventional gas. In late May 2011, the first UK exploration for shale gas using high-volume hydraulic fracturing was suspended at Preese Hall at Weeton in Lancashire after the process triggered two minor earthquakes. The larger of the earthquakes caused minor deformation of the wellbore and was strong enough to be felt. The report of 2012 by the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering concluded that earthquake risk was minimal, and recommended the process be given nationwide clearance, although it highlighted certain concerns which led to changes in regulations. In January 2014, the European Commission issued a set of recommendations on the minimum principles for the exploration and production of hydrocarbons from shale formations using high-volume hydraulic fracturing. Updated guidance for the public was issued by the British government in January 2017. A 2016 government report on the UK shale gas sector was finally made available in 2019 after a three year legal battle to make it public, but with three-quarters of its pages blacked out. The unredacted paragraphs said that the government was “undertaking crucial work on communications to increase public acceptability of shale.” In March 2019, the High Court found the UK government's policy was unlawful and failed to consider the climate impact of shale gas extraction. In November 2019 the government announced "an indefinite suspension" to fracking, after a report by the Oil and Gas Authority (OGA) said it was not possible to predict the probability or size of tremors caused by the practice. Business Secretary Andrea Leadsom said that the suspension might be temporary - imposed "until and unless" extraction is proved safe. The first experimental use of hydraulic fracturing in the world was in 1947, and the first commercially successful applications of hydraulic fracturing were in 1949 in the United States. There has been significant fracking in the US, where it has allowed electricity to be produced using gas rather than coal, halving the associated CO2 emissions.