New Prime Minister Liz Truss is being pressured by the fracking industry to reduce the limits on earthquakes caused by the activity, after her government announced an end to the ban.
Despite criticism that the gains will not be worth the hassle, the government will remove the fracking ban via a written ministerial statement once the mourning period for Queen Elizabeth II is over, Downing Street said last week.
There are an estimated 1,300 trillion cubic feet of shale gas below the UK, according to the British Geological Survey in 2013, though this is not the level of gas that it might be possible to extract.
Fracking involves shooting water, sand and chemicals at rocks underground to release the trapped oil and gas.
Companies engaged in the activity insist the present UK limits on seismic activity, which currently require drilling to stop if tremors above 0.5 on the Richter scale are caused, need to be significantly loosened if a considerable amount of shale resources is to be extracted.
Industry experts cited by the Daily Telegraph say tremors this low often occur naturally and that magnitudes lower than 2 are not usually felt by people above ground, according to the Royal Society.
Fracking is not expected to ever cause tremors above magnitude 3, though Lancashire residents complained their homes shook and items fell off shelves following Cuadrilla test operations that caused a 2.9 magnitude three years ago, and there is evidence of some earthquakes being linked to fracking and contamination of water supplies.
Richard Davies, a petroleum geologist at Newcastle University, told the Telegraph that fracking has “not been a major source of earthquakes” and coal mining had caused “many times more.”
Fracking companies are also urging the government to give ministers the power to approve projects rather than local councils.
Officials are also expected to publish results from the British Geological Survey regarding fracking’s safety.