Member Article

Horse Hill oil find could be 70% more than previously estimated

Following the announcement in April from UK Oil & Gas Investments (UKOG) of the discovery of over 100 billion barrels worth of oil at the Horse Hill site near Gatwick Airport, the organisation has now suggested that there would be 70% more than previously estimated.

In its second report, UKOG now estimates there are 271 million barrels of oil per square mile (mmbo) in the Weald. The total amount of oil in the field has not been revealed.

The previous report estimated about 158 mmbo, after exploration at Horse Hill.

David Lenigas, chairman of UKOG, said: “This really is a change of the model for the potential of oil around the Weal basin, particularly in the Horse Hill area.”

He said UKOG was planning to drill more exploration wells and would need to conduct flow tests to work out how much of the oil was recoverable.

Lenigas has continued to quell rumours that the controversial technique of fracking will be used to extract the oil. He said: “Fracking is not our agenda, there is plenty of conventional oil in the Horse Hill well, to not even look past that.”

Charlie Kronick, senior climate advisor to Greenpeace, said: “We don’t need to spend time and money to find more oil in the UK; if we want to avoid catastrophic climate change, we need to find ways to use less oil, and fast.

“We’re not facing a shortage of oil. The big challenge we face is leaving it in the ground.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ellen Forster .