The infrastructure minister says the decision will be made on whether to extend the seismic survey licence for the exploration of natural gas ’shortly’.

Tim Crookall spoke in the House of Keys sitting on Tuesday and addressed Arbory, Castletown and Malew MHK Jason Moorhouse’s concerns around the exploration for, and extraction of, natural gas from under the seabed.

Crogga, a local energy company, currently holds the licence for this.

He said the government doesn’t yet know if the seismic survey licence should be renewed.

Mr Crookall said: ’This survey will characterise the nature of the potential gas reserve. Should Crogga not complete the seismic survey by December 31, 2021, then the licence will expire.

’Crogga have asked for an extension until June 31, 2023 to complete the necessary work.

’Legal advice is that there will be no legal consequences from allowing the licence to expire.

’Any decision on extension requires the joint agreement of the Department of Infrastructure and the Department of the Environment, Food and Agriculture. The recommendation on whether to extend will be made by these ministers shortly.

’If only everything were as easy as "yes" or "no" as to whether to extend this. This has been looked at for weeks.’

The minister explained why this could be so important, adding: ’They want to know what’s down there, see what the value is and what the potential is for the Isle of Man. We know that gas is going to be a transition fuel for the next 20/25 years, we need to know what’s best for the island and the environment.

’If we were going to start extracting gas locally, that would be better than getting it from Norway or Russia.’

His comments backed up those made by Chief Minister Alfred Cannan in last week’s sitting when he said that the government was committed to ’maintaining the security of energy supply at an affordable cost’ while ’minimising the impact of energy use on the environment’.

Mr Crookall said: ’The department awarded a seawork production innovative licence to Crogga in October 2018 to permit the company to search for hydrocarbons, oil and gas, within the defined area of territorial waters commencing on the January 1, 2019.

’Such licences are divided into three exploration phases - phase A is geotechnical studies and geophysical processing, phase B is seismic surveys and acquiring other geophysical data and phase C is exploratory drilling.

’The company is also required to secure various consents and permissions for the activities undertaken, for instance the seismic survey undertaken under phase B has potential for environmental impact and a permit for such a survey is required to be issued by DEFA.’

The consenting process for this is administered by DEFA’s fisheries officers.