Billionaire Jim Ratcliffe’s petrochemicals giant Ineos has failed in its attempt to overturn Scotland's effective ban on shale gas fracking.

After months of legal wrangling Court of Session judge Lord Pentland threw out the group’s call for a judicial review of Holyrood’s indefinite moratorium on hydraulic fracturing because ministers have not technically put a ban in place.

Lord Pentland concluded that Ineos’s complaint was based on a “series of fundamental misunderstandings of the Scottish government’s position” and “should accordingly be refused”.

The move could prove a death blow to Ineos’s ambitions to become Britain’s biggest shale gas player in order to fuel its Grangemouth refinery in Falkirk.

The group has already spent £50m on navigating red tape surrounding two licences in Scotland but its plans were plunged into doubt last autumn after Scotland’s energy minister, Paul Wheelhouse, said the controversial process of hydraulic fracturing "cannot and will not take place in Scotland" due to overwhelming opposition.