Rishi Sunak on the verge of securing significant agreement to provide fracked gas from the US to prevent winter power outages.

The prime minister hopes to strike a deal with Joe Biden this month that could see the US supply billions of cubic feet of natural gas to Britain in the coming months to help ease an energy crisis sparked by Vladimir Putin.

The deal, launched by Liz Truss, will bolster the UK’s power supply and reduce the risk of blackouts, which the national grid has warned could happen this winter.

Ironically, this will make the UK more dependent on gas produced by hydraulic fracturing, just weeks after Mr Sunak reintroduced a ban on the controversial technology in the UK. Nearly two-thirds of American gas is now produced by hydraulic fracturing, which has returned America to a net energy exporter in recent years.

President Biden, who is pictured speaking at a rally in Maryland on Monday, is likely to discuss the issue with his British counterpart at the G-20 summit next week in Indonesia.

Andy Meyer, an energy analyst at the Institute of Economic Affairs, said that exploiting the UK’s vast reserves of shale gas would be more environmentally friendly than importing supplies from the US and would generate huge tax revenues and economic activity.

“Banning fracking in the UK while doing deals to import fracking gas in the US prioritizes climate over climate action,” he said. It reduces our energy security, risks higher bills and undermines public finances.

Imported gas, refrigerated and shipped in huge tankers, has a higher carbon footprint than gas drilled at home.

“The anti-fracking campaigns are not environmentally sound while we are still dependent on fossil fuels for 75 percent of our primary energy.” Downing Street confirmed discussions about a deal were ongoing but declined to comment on the details.

The prime minister’s official spokesperson said the US was a country where “there is more we can do together to address rising energy prices”. “We are still discussing with the United States what might be the right approach,” he added.

Sunak, who came into the picture after being elected leader of the Conservative Party last month, hopes to seal a US energy deal as early as December.

A government source said Sunak was likely to discuss the issue with Biden at the G20 summit next week in Indonesia. The UK is also in talks with both Norway and Qatar on long-term gas supply deals.

Ministers hope that the new Energy Security Partnership with the United States will close as early as this month.

Meanwhile, the former Cabinet Minister, Lord Frost, said there was a “degree of hypocrisy” in trying to import more fracked gas while its extraction was banned in the UK.

He told GB News: ‘Personally, I’m in favor of at least trying fracking, to see if we can do it effectively. We need to be responsible for the security of our own supplies.