Gatwick oil ‘could add billions’ to UK economy, said a headline on the BBC website yesterday.
The article was discussing the findings of a report by EY, commissioned by UKOG and based on UKOG’s own assumptions.
The report, Kimmeridge Limestone Oil: The UK opportunity, concludes that “the development of Kimmeridge Limestone Oil in the Weald Basin, assuming it can be extracted from a development site at the volumes projected by UKOG [our emphasis], has the potential to generate significant economic value to the UK economy”.
Using UKOG’s projections, EY estimate that total production from the Weald Basin could be 140 million barrels in a low scenario, rising to 1,125 million barrels in a ligh scenario. Peak oil production in the high scenario is more than 330,000 barrels per day.
For an analysis of what this level of production would mean in terms, read this post on drillordrop.com: Weald oil production could generate £52bn over 40 years – but thousands of wells needed
Blogger Tom Winnifrith, writing on the ShareProphets website, said, “The numbers are enormous but there is no basis in fact for them at all. UK Oil & Gas is engaged in shameless ramping.” [This page is accessible to subscribers only but it’s free to subscribe.]
Andrew West, a campaigner with the group Frack Off, said: “This is just enough oil on paper to make a few people rich but the figures are highly dubious and even if you accept them they are not nationally significant and certainly do not justify the destruction of the Weald. If communities living in the Weald are opposed to a massive unconventional drilling campaign then every small step along the way needs to be fought tooth and nail.”
And Keith Taylor MEP, a member of the European Parliament’s environment committee, said: “This report is truly astonishing. How can we place any trust in wild estimates that range from £7bn to £52bn? These figures are based on some very dubious assumptions and seem good for little else than bolstering UK Oil and Gas’s share price. Crucially, the singular focus of the analysis fundamentally fails to factor in the economic and environmental costs of unconventional fossil fuel extraction.”
In other news, it was announced that UKOG has bought Angus Energy’s share of Horse Hill Developments for £1.8 million. Angus was formerly the lead partner in the Horse Hill Development Limited consortium.
I suppose Andrew West knows, he has burrowed deep underground to assess the oil pool down there. So far the evidence using all the technical wizardy available, is that there is signiicant oil underneath the Weald. Yet, Andrew West, who has not so much as stuck a pin in the ground tells us that there is not !. And, in the comment above, not thousand’s of wells, they tend to group them these days and drill outwards horizontally.
Then we have K Taylor MP, telling us that the figures are based on dubious assumptions. Lets reverse that
the figures are not true, based upon the dubious assumptions of K Taylor MP. One of those must be correct, but UKOG have the knowhow, K Taylor MP does not !
Wether this is a uK game changer, has yet to be proved, or disproved and that can only be decided by drilling holes in the ground
Whether “UKOG have the knowhow” I don’t know. But they certainly have a reputation for exaggeration, and the incentive to do so.
As we have to leave 80% of known fossil fuel reserves in the ground to have any chance of avoiding runaway climate change, there really is no point in exploring for more at Horse Hill or anywhere else. So it’s probably best that those holes remain undrilled, even if that means never knowing which of UKOG or K Taylor MEP were correct!