ENERGY experts rubbished claims fracking could land Britain a fuel bonanza yesterday as desperate Tories tried to push drilling ahead by offering a bung to targeted communities. 

A report by the British Geological Survey (BGS) has found there are an estimated 4.4bn barrels of shale oil in parts of southern England.

The study of the Weald basin, which stretches from Wiltshire to Kent, found there could be 2.2-8.5bn barrels of shale oil.

The BGS stressed that these numbers are for resources and not reserves — technically and economically recoverable oil.  Shale oil exploration in the US has only been able to access up to 10 per cent of the total oil.

But the  study also found there is unlikely to be any shale gas potential in the area.

Frack Off campaigner Lorna Roseacre said Britain’s countryside faced mass industrialisation for a tiny amount of oil. 

She said: “For fracking companies to extract just 4 per cent of the 4.4bn barrels of shale oil that the British Geological Survey say lies under southern England would require 1,400 wells.

“ If they could access 10 per cent, which is extremely generous, it would require 3,500 wells to be drilled.”

The report was published as Con-Dem fracking cheerleaders proposed new rules to simplify the granting of access for fracking which would see underground access for shale oil and gas developments allowed under 300 metres.

People living round the sites would be offered a public cash bung of £20,000 per well in a bid to pay off communities that could be affected. 

Friends of the Earth's south-east regional campaigner Brenda Pollack questioned the timing of the announcement, coming after the local and European elections.

She said: "No wonder the Government waited until after the elections to make this announcement as Lord Howell recently warned that fracking will cost the Tories thousands of votes in their heartlands.”

GMB national officer Gary Smith slammed the compensation offer as “yet another knee-jerk move by a government that has lost any credibility on energy policy.”

He called for an “honest, rational debate” over what contribution fracking could make to Britain’s energy mix.