UK oil producers are celebrating what they are calling the biggest onshore oil discovery in the last 30 years in the land near Gatwick Airport.

An exploration firm has confirmed the land under Horse Hill near Gatwick could contain 158 million barrels of oil per square mile – up to 100 billion barrels in total. The firm is hoping it could meet between 10 per cent and 30 per cent of UK demand for oil by 2030.

"Based on what we've found here, we're looking at between 50 and 100 billion barrels of oil in place in the ground," said Steven Sanderson, UKOG chief executive.

"We believe we can recover between 5 per cent and 15 per cent of the oil in the ground, which by 2030 could mean that we produce 10 per cent to 30 per cent of the UK's oil demand from within the Weald area."

Source: Oil and Gas Authority Source: Oil and Gas Authority While the discovery won’t immediately affect the price of petrol at the pump – which is governed by the global price of oil – it could swell tax coffers and boost UK jobs in the beleaguered UK oil and gas sector.

Oil and gas companies are the UK’s largest industrial investor. In 2012-13, the industry paid £6.5 billion in corporate taxes on production, over 15 per cent of all corporate taxes in the UK.

North Sea Oil Production
Source: Oil and Gas UK, DECC North Sea Oil Production Source: Oil and Gas UK, DECC
Oil and gas employs 450,000 people across the UK but jobs in the sector have been declining with North Sea oil output. Osborne recently announced plans to try and revive the North Sea oil industry with £1.3 billion in tax breaks in the Budget.

READ MORE:
BUDGET 2015: STRUGGLING OIL INDUSTRY IS THROWN A £1.3BN LIFELINE

The discovery is good news for investors in UKOG, which owns a 30 per cent stake in Horse Hill - a company set up to dig for oil in the area. The UKOG share price exploded on the news: by press time it was up 2.1p or 190 per cent on Thursday to 3.2p.

UKOG share price
Source: Reuters UKOG share price Source: Reuters "We think we've found a very significant discovery here, probably the largest [onshore in the UK] in the last 30 years, and we think it has national significance," Stephen Sanderson, UKOG's chief executive told the BBC.

"Drilling the deepest well in the basin in 30 years, together with the ability to use concepts, techniques and technology unavailable in the 1980s, has provided new cutting-edge data and interpretations to comprehensively change the understanding of the area's potential oil resources."

However, UKOG admitted that only a small portion of that estimated figure would actually be recovered but described the find as a "world class potential resource". It believes that between three per cent and 15 per cent of the oil could be extracted.

The Horse Hill licences cover 55 square miles of the Weald Basin in southern England - an area that has been heavily licenced for onshore oil exploration. An interactive map by the UK Oil and Gas Authority shows where licences are held and by whom.


UKOG says oil is located within the Upper Jurassic Kimmeridge formation between 2,500ft (762m) and 3,000ft (914m) below the surface.

UKOG claims it does not plan on using fracking as a method of extracting the oil. It says that the oil contained below Horse Hill in rocks that are naturally fractured. This means that oil reservoirs could potentially be produced using "conventional horizontal drilling and completion techniques".

Greenpeace chief scientist Doug Parr condemned those 'rubbing their hands' on the news. "We already have more than enough coal, oil, and gas reserves to fry the planet," Parr said. "It's time we uncoupled our economy from the dangerous roller-coaster of fossil fuels and invested in the clean technologies that can provide safe and cheap energy for decades to come."


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/ukog-share-price-explodes-as-gatwick-explorers-tap-up-to-100-billion-barrels-of-oil--but-will-the-discovery-affect-petrol-prices-10164546.html

lalasticlala

Tougher times for Buhari.

And Nigeria looses more customers. At this stage, the only way we can survive is by renovating or building new refineries(the ones we have have been abandoned for ages and who knows if they can still function), refining our own oil and sell to Nigerians and other African countries.

If Nigeria can be the sole supplier/largest supplier of AGO within Africa we will definitely survive. Even if we sold only within Nigeria, we would be able to take care of ourselves with over 160m population there would be such a huge demand within our borders that we would have to think twice before exporting.

My 1kobo

Time to re-visit the drawing board

Time to diversify into other sectors

Particularly funny as Gatwick airport is owned by Adebayo Ogunlesi

The man certainly has a Midas touch - having an oil field near your airport will surely increase traffic greatly. If this isn't a strong argument to have the extra proposed runway at Gatwick rather than Heathrow then I don't know what else it will take.

I just hope nigeria will stop over depending on oil, cuz very soon it will become almost free in the international market, we need something else to hold on too, just imagined our gullible leaders had invested the money gotten from crude oil when the price was still meaningful

Good for them. We must recover atleast 60% of our stolen oil money so that we can diversify. We have a refinery here and some other states. We can start using them. We have cocoa, rubber, tin, etc
Where is Revdemon you can now take your oil we don't want it again

The beginning of the end of oyel money.

Good News!!!!!!!!!!

Anything that will make our oil sell below $5 per barrel is welcome.

No wonder Shell and BG have merged in a toned acquisition

American has trillion of barrels, now UK has 100billion + what they has before and china is also looking for away to explore the oil reserve in south Chinese sea while south African has discover enough for their country for years, india is working acidiously to discover and recover her own source.


Oil is becoming common thing and 5years ago we should have diversified, I even raised the alarm here on nairaland but our useless and senseless government who should know better did not even think in that direction. Well it is not too late to diversify but we will be cash starved for another 5 to 6 years before we reap from today's diversification.

yepa
time fir diversification

time to move to uk

seunfly:
American has trillion of barrels, now UK has 100billion + what they has before and china is also looking for away to explore the oil reserve in south Chinese sea while south African has discover enough for their country for years, india is working acidiously to discover and recover her own source.


Oil is becoming common thing and 5years ago we should have diversified, I even raised the alarm here on nairaland but our useless and senseless government who should know better did not even think in that direction. Well it is not too late to diversify but we will be cash starved for another 5 to 6 years before we reap from today's diversification.

when was oil first discovered?
is jonathan d first president of naija?
why didnt obj, ibb, abdulsalam, abacha, shagari n d rest diversify?
abeg if u dont knw what to say just read n ignore.

Bre:
Particularly funny as Gatwick airport is owned by Adebayo Ogunlesi
The man certainly has a Midas touch - having an oil field near your airport will surely increase traffic greatly. If this isn't a strong argument to have the extra proposed runway at Gatwick rather than Heathrow then I don't know what else it will take.

My brother should remember us when he's sharing this oil o.

I feel sorry for Nigerians. Dey there dey cry oyel oyel. Na Nigerian oil sha, na for all of us. The oil belongs to no region.

poiZon:


when was oil first discovered?
is jonathan d first president of naija?
why didnt obj, ibb, abdulsalam, abacha, shagari n d rest diversify?
abeg if u dont knw what to say just read n ignore.

Yes, you are right they too should have done something about it but 10 - 7 years ago it was as if oil can't depreciate but the red flag was very obvious in the last 6years when oil shale madness began yet Okonjo said no problem.

poiZon:

















when was oil first discovered?
is jonathan d first president of naija?
why didnt obj, ibb, abdulsalam, abacha, shagari n d rest diversify?
abeg if u dont knw what to say just read n ignore.

The guy is right na. Oil had value then

Good news for them

Everybody is talking about diversification like its easy. If the oil price crashes below 40 dollars, Nigeria is as good as dead.
There's nothing to diversify to.

idupaul:
No wonder Shell and BG have merged in a toned acquisition

Shell acquired BG.

Choi.........#ouroyel

hahn:
And Nigeria looses more customers. At this stage, the only way we can survive is by renovating or building new refineries(the ones we have have been abandoned for ages and who knows if they can still function), refining our own oil and sell to Nigerians and other African countries.

If Nigeria can be the sole supplier/largest supplier of AGO within Africa we will definitely survive. Even if we sold only within Nigeria, we would be able to take care of ourselves with over 160m population there would be such a huge demand within our borders that we would have to think twice before exporting.

My 1kobo

Dangote's refinery will be operational in 2016 or the year after. The Nigerian refineries are as good as dead.

abduljabbar4:
Good for them. We must recover atleast 60% of our stolen oil money so that we can diversify. We have a refinery here and some other states. We can start using them. We have cocoa, rubber, tin, etc
Where is Revdemon you can now take your oil we don't want it again

But most of y'all are illiterate.

QuotaSystem:
Buhari and his team obviously saw this trend coming, no wonder diversification of the economy is one of the top three items on his agenda.

Which govt didn't mouth diversification?

Nigeria should start planning fast to diversify our economy because very soon crude oil will be useless with the rate at which the western world are coming out with their hidden discovery of crude oil. To me, this came out as planned at the right time.

Sweetguy25:

Shell acquired BG.

Yeah that's what I said oga

seunfly:


Yes, you are right they too should have done something about it but 10 - 7 years ago it was as if oil can't depreciate but the red flag was very obvious in the last 6years when oil shale madness began yet Okonjo said no problem.

do u knw d meaning of DIIVERSIFICATION?
Hw much has this admin pump into other sectors of the economy, we've seen much improvement inthe agric sector, entertainment, industries. the auto policy was a great leap to encouraging local manufacturing n also employed our teemng unemployed youths. thats is part of diverting from oil based economy to other sector. what did obj n the rest do to diversify?