ENERGY companies have Dorset in their sights as licences for onshore gas and oil exploration are awarded.

Campaigners fear the granting of a new raft of licences to explore for oil and gas in the UK could open up swathes of the country to fracking.

Licences issued by the Oil and Gas Authority (OGA) do not give any direct permission for operations to begin, rather grants the licensee exclusivity over an area of land to explore and extract.

In Dorset, three companies have been granted licences to explore a total of nine blocks of land.

These cover areas including Piddlehinton, Puddletown, Bere Regis, Wareham Forest, Poole, Bournemouth part of the Lulworth Ranges, Corfe Castle and Swanage.

Blocks in the Purbeck countryside and towards the coast are similar operations or an extension to existing onshore oilfields at Kimmeridge and Wytch Farm with conventional drilling proposed from Perenco and Infrastrata.

Both firms said there were no plans for shale gas development or fracking.

South Western Energy has been granted a licence for five blocks of land stretching from Puddletown to Bournemouth and taking in the Lulworth Ranges for shale oil or gas exploration, which typically requires fracking.

No-one from the company could be reached for comment.

The OGA has granted a total of 93 licences for 159 blocks of land around the UK.

OGA chief executive Andy Samuel said: "This round enables a significant amount of the UK's shale prospects to be taken forward to be explored and tested."

Energy Minister Andrea Leadsom said: "The licences offered move us a step closer - driving forwards this industry which will provide secure, home-grown energy to hard-working families and businesses for decades to come."

But environmental groups oppose the opening up of the countryside to fracking for fossil fuels, a move which comes just days after the UK backed the world's first universal climate agreement to drive down greenhouse gas emissions.

The Government has also faced criticism this week after it won a vote to allow fracking to take place under national parks, world heritage sites and other protected areas.

The Green Party in Dorset said it was committed to oppose any applications to frack anywhere in the county.

South Dorset MP Richard Drax said fracking was a vital industry which could create more than 60,000 jobs and be worth billions of pounds to the economy.