AIM oil and gas explorers surge on Yorkshire fracking decision

UK onshore oil and gas explorers IGas Energy and Egdon Resources were among those celebrating the approval granted to a fracking project in Yorkshire late on Monday.

Councillors in North Yorkshire voted to back plans by privately owned Third Energy, said to be the first scheme to gain approval in the UK in five years, to extract shale gas near the North York Moors national park.

Despite country-wide protests against fracking, a controversial process as the liquid pumped underground at high pressure to fracture rocks and release trapped gas but also cause unwanted tremors and pollute water courses, the decision is felt likely to lead to schemes elsewhere in the country gaining approval.

Cuadrilla Resources, which was the last company to carry out fracking in the UK in 2011, is expecting decisions on its plans for two sites in Lancashire before 4 July.

IGas Energy is the largest UK shale player by gross acreage and has carried out $225m of total gross shale exploration work over its own properties and those of its partners, Total, ENGIE E&P and INEOS.

IGas has acreage across all of the UK's shale basins and claims to be well placed to "make a significant contribution to home grown gas production from shale", with a recent submission for a planning application to drill two wells in North Nottinghamshire.

Egdon Resources is primarily focused on onshore exploration and production in the UK, currently holding interests in 36 licences in the UK and across the Channel in France, including in iGas's Springs Road, Nottingham project, plus is awaiting the award of nine further licences which include "unconventional", or fracking, opportunities.

Egdon said it expected a decision on planning consent for Spring Road in the third quarter of 2016.

Shares in IGas were up 28% to 19.5p and Egdon's by 25% to 10.75p from early on Tuesday.