Hsbc Fracking Fact Sheet

HSBC FRACKING FACT SHEET

FINANCING FRACKING AROUND THE WORLD

UNITED STATES

HSBC recently joined several other banks in underwriting a €1bn bond for BG Group, a company that has been heavily involved in fracking in the US and is considering fracking in Europe. [1]

CANADA

HSBC is one of three banks to provide CA$ 100 million in funding to GasFrac, a company pioneering “waterless” fracking. [2] This highly dangerous process involved forcing a mixture of propane and chemical additives into shale rock to break up the shale rock and release the trapped shale gas inside. Propane is highly explosive and there have already been several gas wells that have caught on fire.

ALGERIA

HSBC are the official bank of Sontach, the Algerian state‐owned oil and gas company formed to exploit the hydrocarbon resources of the country. [3] Sontach have been aggressively been pushing unconventional oil and gas extraction in Algeria. They recently offered 31 exploration licenses.

UNITED KINGDOM

In the UK, HSBC are providing banking services to Cuadrilla, the company drilling for shale gas near Blackpool in Lancashire. They also provided a $100 million loan to Dart Energy, a company planning on exploring unconventional gas extraction in Scotland. [4]

FROM FINANCE TO FRACKING INDUSTRY

Sam Laidlaw, CEO of Centrica, who recently announced £160 million of investment in fracking in the UK, is a non‐executive director of HSBC. [5]

While serving as the founding CEO of EnCana Corp, one of the largest shale gas operators in the United States and Canada, Gwyn Morgan served as a Director on the Board of HSBC Bank Canada. He later left the Canadian branch and served as on the Board of Directors at HSBC Holdings. [6]