LONDON (Alliance News) - The string of AIM-listed companies involved in the Horse Hill project in southern England on Monday said they have secured the last necessary approval to conduct a flowtest on the Horse Hill-1 well located near Gatwick Airport.
The extended flowtest will be conducted over three separate intervals in the Horse Hill-1 well after the UK Oil & Gas Authority gave the green light for the test. That follows on similar approval being secured from the Environment Agency in late November.
Horse Hill Developments Ltd owns a 65% stake in the Horse Hill prospect and the remaining 35% of the prospect is held by Magellan Petroleum Corp.
UK Oil and Gas Investments holds a 30% stake in Horse Hill Developments, whilst Doriemus PLC, Stellar Resources PLC, Solo Oil PLC and Alba Mineral Resources PLC each hold 10% stakes in Horse Hill Developments, with Evocutis PLC holding a 2% stake and the balance is owned by Angus Energy, in which UK Oil & Gas has a 6% stake.
All of the AIM-listed companies involved released separate statements on Monday confirming they had been informed of the approval from Horse Hill Developments.
Moving forward, the tests will be carried out on a number of intervals including the Portland Sandstone and the Kimmeridgian Limestones. None of the companies confirmed a test date, but in late 2014, the partners said they planned on conducting the test "in the coming months" after the last approval had been secured.
During 2015, there has been some controversy over the amount of oil that might be in the well, with the upcoming flowtest set to definitely outline how much oil the project potentially has.
The latest figure provided by the companies suggested there could be up to 10.99 billion barrels of oil in place, but the big question is how much of that oil can actually be extracted. Currently, it is thought only around 3% to 15% of the oil in place could ever be recovered from the well.
The current estimates cover a 55 square mile area over the PEDL137 and PEDL246 Horse Hill licenses. Of the estimate, 8.26 billion barrels is thought to lie in the Kimmeridge Clay formation, 1.71 billion barrels in the Lias formation, and 1.01 billion barrels in the Oxford Clay. The estimates exclude the underlying Jurassic tight oil plays which lingers beneath the Kimmeridge, Lias and Oxford Clay formations.
By Joshua Warner; joshuawarner@alliancenews.com; @JoshAlliance
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