Cameron encourages councils to back fracking

Cameron encourages councils to back frackingBritish Prime Minister David Cameron has taken steps to encourage councils to support shale gas exploration in the UK by backing fracking technique.

The prime minister said English local authorities that support "fracking" will get to keep more money in tax revenue as part of the government's drive to boost shale gas exploration in the country.  He said that English local authorities backing the initiatives will receive all the business rates collected from shale gas schemes - rather than the usual 50 per cent.

The government in the UK has given a go ahead to some firms to continue an extraction technique known as `fracking' to exploit gas in the country.  Firms including IGas and Cuadrilla have begun exploratory drilling for shale gas Fracking involves creating little explosions underground and then flooding with water and chemicals to obtain gas trapped in shale rocks.

The 14th round of shale licensing was originally expected to be held in 2010 but has been pushed to 2014 and is crucial for the industry as the energy availability and prices have raised concerns in the country.  Cameron has said that the gas from shale gas extraction has helped bring a boom in production the US and resulted in a fall in process.  He said that the same could be possible in the UK.