According to press reports, exploratory drilling at Horse Hill has found that there could be almost 20 million barrels of oil – 3.1m barrels of oil in the well’s upper Portland sandstone, with potential for a further 16.8m barrels nearby.

The company is now drilling deeper into the Triassic (gas-containing) layer.

David Lenigas, chair of Horse Hill Developments, said: “We are very pleased with the results so far from this well…. We are now looking forward to drilling the Triassic, which is a new and untested exploration target in the area, which, if successful, may contain appreciable volumes of gas.”

Read articles in the press:

Move over JR Ewing: oil discovered near Gatwick airport (Guardian)

Market Report: Gatwick is not the new Texas (Independent)

UK’s Horse Hill-1 hits oil (Upstream)

Campaign picnic

Anti-fracking campaigners are holding a Halloween picnic at the gates today, to highlight the threat of fracking in the area.

While the current permissions do not allow fracking, one of the partners, Magellan Petroleum, has spoken of the area being part of its “unconventional” portfolio. And oil and gas companies the world over now work on the principle of permission creep – applying for ‘conventional’ permission, and then, having forced their foot into the door and turned a greenfield into a brownfield site, applying to frack.

Details of the picnic (Facebook)

Also in the press today:

‘Dangerously high’ levels of airborne carcinogens found at US fracking sites (Independent)