LONDON (Alliance News) - UK Oil and Gas Investments PLC Tuesday reiterated that the company has not completed sufficient work on the Horse Hill license area near Gatwick Airport to comment on the amount of oil in place following on from the Evening Standard newspaper quoting its chairman as placing a 100 billion barrel figure on the asset.
On April 9, UK Oil and Gas Investments and its partners on the Horse Hill project in Surrey, England, said they had made an oil discovery at the Horse Hill 1 well in the Weald basin, stating there was 158.0 million barrels per square mile of oil in place over a 653 feet aggregate net pay section.
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.
Although the companies only confirmed the 158.0 million barrel per square mile figure in there statements, the media, including Sky News and the BBC, reported that the oil in place could be around 100.0 billion barrels of oil.
However, UK Oil and Gas Investments Chief Executive Stephen Sanderson responded by stating initial estimates showed that only between 3% and 15% of the total oil in place could be recovered, suggesting the discovery was could potentially lead to between 3.0 billion to 15.0 billion barrels of oil.
Despite the claims in the media, UK Oil and Gas tried to cool the speculation on April 15 when it said
it will need to undertake more exploration and testing before the potential size of its own license can be confirmed, let alone the wider basin in which it sits.
It said it would need to do more appraisal drilling, well testing and assessment of recovery factors in order to quantify the net resources in relation to its own licence areas and to prove its commerciality.
But last Friday, UK Oil and Gas Chairman David Lenigas was quoted in the Evening Standard newspaper backing the 100.0 billion barrel figure.
When asked if the 100.0 billion barrel figure was an overstatement, he replied: "No. We said we believed there were 158 million barrels per square mile and we own 55 square miles. We think we can recover 3%-15% ? that?s 100 billion barrels."
"All we said was that the oil we found did not constitute either ?contingent or prospective resources or reserves?," he continued.
On Tuesday, UK Oil and Gas Investments released a response to the Evening Standard press article and about the estimated number of barrels of oil at the Horse Hill project.
"The company repeats it has not undertaken work outside of its licence areas sufficient to comment on the possible Oil in Place in either the approximate 1,100 square miles of the relevant Jurassic section of the Weald Basin or the whole of the Weald Basin," said UK Oil and Gas.
http://www.standard.co.uk/business/markets/david-lenigas-is-the-gatwick-oil-bonanza-a-con-no-fracking-way-10218767.html
UK Oil and Gas shares were down 1.9% to 2.65 pence on Tuesday morning whilst Solo shares rose by 0.9% to 0.555p. Doriemus shares were up 1.8% to 0.0865.0p and Alba shares were up 9.1% to 0.600p. Stellar shares were untraded on Tuesday morning, last trading at 0.500p and Evocutis shares were down 2.4% to 0.205p.
By Joshua Warner; joshuawarner@alliancenews.com; @JoshAlliance
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