Cuadrilla Resources Ltd. said it will submit a new planning application to cover flow testing from a conventional horizontal oil exploration well in southern England, but it also acknowledged that protests against hydraulic fracturing (fracking) had caused a “significant level of disruption” in the area.

Meanwhile, the UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osbourne, reiterated the government’s support for the development of its unconventional oil and gas resources.

Staffordshire, England-based Cuadrilla began exploratory activities at its Lower Stumble site near Balcombe in West Sussex County in early August. The company’s original planning application, which included a boundary delineation that covered the surface drilling area at Lower Stumble, was approved by the county council in 2010.

But Cuadrilla management said Wednesday that it had decided to submit a new application with revised planning boundary lines showing the extent of the horizontal well being tested. The company has previously said that the well being drilled was a conventional well, which may or may not be ultimately fracked.

“Our decision to make a new application for the well testing activity, rather than an extension of previously approved activity, is to resolve any potential legal ambiguity around how the planning boundary should be drawn for a subsurface horizontal well,” Cuadrilla CEO Francis Egan said in a letter to Balcombe residents on Tuesday. “As this is a new application, the county council will consult with interested third parties and there will also be the opportunity for further engagement through existing channels with Balcombe residents about our proposed well testing plans.”

Egan said well drilling at Lower Stumble would be completed this month and the drilling rig and associated equipment removed from the site. Subsurface rock sampling is also scheduled to start this month. But he said there would “be a time gap of some months” before the West Sussex County Council considers the company’s new application. “Testing equipment will not be mobilized to [the] site until planning consent has been granted,” Egan said.

Anti-fracking demonstrators zeroed in on Balcombe for a three-day protest last month (see Shale Daily, Aug. 20). Cuadrilla decided to scale back drilling operations at Lower Stumble after police advised the company that some protesters had threatened to take “direct action” against the drilling site.

“It is regrettable that there has been a significant level of disruption in the village and outside the site,” Egan said. “Cuadrilla has said on a number of occasions that it supports the right of peaceful protestors to make their objections to drilling known. However, the level of unlawful protest has resulted in a significant police presence at the Lower Stumble site and in turn a number of arrests.”

In a speech Tuesday at the Offshore Europe Conference in Aberdeen, Scotland, Osbourne said the oil and gas industry plays a vital role in the UK’s economy, supplying 70% of the nation’s primary energy needs.

“Of course, we want exploration of our shale resources to be safe, to avoid environmental damage, and be done in a way where communities get the benefit of what’s happening in their backyard,” Osbourne said. “That’s why we got the industry to commit to generous community benefits. But let me also say this: Britain led the way in finding new sources of energy — coal in the 18th and 19th centuries, oil in the 20th century, and renewables at the turn of the 21st century.

“If we turn our back on new sources of energy, which countries like China and the U.S. are exploiting, then we’re saying to British families: ‘You pay energy bills that are higher than those paid by families elsewhere.’ We’re saying to British companies: ‘You’ll face costs higher than companies face elsewhere.’ And we’re saying to our country: ‘We’ll have fewer jobs, less investment and higher costs of living.’

“I’m not prepared to say that to the British people. Britain is not going to turn its back on the energy sources of the future.”

Last month a report by the University of Nottingham suggested that public opinion in the country was beginning to shift in favor of unconventional natural gas development using fracking (see Shale Daily, Aug. 16). British Prime Minister David Cameron also said he supported shale development.