Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Key definition

Fracking definition

What does Fracking mean? Hydraulic fracturing (fracking) is a well stimulation technique to extract shale gas or tight oil by injecting water, sand and chemical additives at high pressure to create fractures in deep rock. In legal practice it engages petroleum licensing, planning permission and environmental permitting. In England, 'associated hydraulic fracturing' is defined in the Petroleum Act 1998 (as amended by the Infrastructure Act 2015) by reference to fluid volumes, which triggers statutory safeguards on depth, protected groundwater areas and methane monitoring. Typical instructions include: securing petroleum licences (England: North Sea Transition Authority), planning consent from the mineral planning authority, environmental permits (groundwater, mining...

Adapting Joint Operating Agreements for Unconventional Oil and Gas: Key Changes on Operations, Operator Tenure, Land Interests, Budget Flexibility, Non-Consent, Withdrawal, Commercialisation, Environment and Unitisation

Published by a LexisNexis Energy expert

Practice notes

'Unconventional' petroleum

'Unconventional' petroleum is produced by methods beyond orthodox techniques (chiefly vertical and horizontal drilling). It embraces shale oil and shale gas (oil or gas contained within comparatively fissile shale strata that necessitate hydraulic fractionation, or ‘Fracking’, to secure their release), coal bed methane (methane adsorbed onto the surface of coal seams), tight gas (gas confined in formations with permeability so low that fracking is indispensable) and hydrates (gas sequestered within ice-like crystalline water frameworks). For further details, see: Unconventional Oil & Gas—overview. A conventional joint operating agreement (conventional JOA) must be amended in several respects and in a number of areas to accommodate the distinct features of an unconventional petroleum venture in practice. For more on conventional JOAs, see Practice Notes: The purpose and the principles of the joint operating agreement and Joint operating agreements: operator and non-operating party perspectives. In 2014, the Association of International Energy Negotiators (AIEN) (formerly the Association of International Petroleum Negotiators) published a bespoke unconventional petroleum operations JOA, though in many regards it did not amount to a radical shift from the provisions of the conventional model...

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Web page updated on 21/05/2026

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