Cuadrilla Resources has sought a court injunction to prevent trespassers from entering the premises of its shale gas exploration operations at Preston New Road, Lancashire, UK.
The company has filed papers to Manchester High Court District Registry in preparation for a hearing on 31 May.
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If approved, the proposed injunction would replace and extend an existing injunction at the exploration site and surrounding farmland.
The company noted that the injunction would also prohibit unlawful obstruction of the site entrance and disruption of its supply chain, for example, by blockading supplier properties.
Cuadrilla Resources CEO Francis Egan said: “While we fully respect the right to peaceful and legal protest, unfortunately over the last 18 months, we have seen an extraordinarily high level of unlawful protest activity.
“This has been directed at and impacted not just our workers but also our suppliers and other law-abiding citizens using the main road passing our site for their normal daily activities.
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By GlobalData“Such unlawful conduct cannot be permitted to continue, and we hope that if we can secure this injunction it will deter this unlawful behaviour, which is reckless and continues to cost local taxpayers millions of pounds.”
Last month, the company completed drilling the first horizontal shale gas well at its exploration site at Preston New Road.
As per the planning permission, the company can drill up to four wells at the site.
Cuadrilla’s plans to carry out fracking for shale gas development have been facing opposition from anti-fracking protestors.
Last year, protestors vandalised a drilling rig owned by Cuadrilla, according to The Guardian.
The shale gas industry in the UK has not witnessed significant operations of the scale seen in the US.
Last week, the UK Government indicated that the planning processes regarding exploration and development of shale gas resources would be reviewed in order to accelerate the applications.
