[Update supplied by Brockham Oil Watch]

There has been a major upheaval at the helm at Angus Energy plc.

Paul Vonk was ousted as Managing Director at the end of January and replaced by hereditary peer Lord Lucan; and Cameron Buchanan has stepped down as interim Chair to be replaced by Lord Clanwilliam, another Eton-educated peer.

Additionally finance director Carlos Fernandes and geologist Andrew Hollis have joined the board and Rob Shepherd has departed. Jonathan Tidswell-Pretorius remains as non-board director of operations, having been found to have broken the company’s share dealing code.

At the wellsite, operations had to be suspended in early February 2019 after an ingress of water under pressure downhole prevented the well test from going ahead.  At the beginning of April, Angus announced a 3-month long programme of work on well BRX4Z, which is summarised below. This started earlier than expected, the week of April 8th.

• Stage 1: Water isolation, re-perforation and recompletion – 28 working days (mid-April to late May)
• Stage 2: Installation of production equipment, commissioning, flow test and optimisation – 27 working days – (early June to mid-July)

Air and water sampling

Thanks to a Crowdfunder appeal, Brockham Oil Watch has got water and air sampling up and running, and now has good quality baseline data for both. More donations and support would be greatly appreciated. Read more about the sampling.

18 May 2019 – Talk on earthquakes and unconventional drilling

We are delighted to be bringing to you David K. Smythe, Emeritus Professor of Geophysics in the University of Glasgow, who will give a talk on the earthquakes and unconventional drilling in the Weald Basin. The meeting will be held in the evening of Saturday, 18 May at Beare Green Village Hall, Beare Green, Dorking RH5 4RD (just off A24).