Last checked at 26 Aug 2015 07:05
26 August 2015
UK Oil & Gas Investments PLC
("UKOG" or the "Company")
Schlumberger Independent Assessment of Horse Hill Licence Area
UK Oil & Gas Investments PLC (LSE AIM: UKOG) is pleased to announce that a mean Oil in Place ("OIP") of 10.993 billion barrels has been independently calculated by Schlumberger to lie within the 55 square miles of the PEDL137 and PEDL246 Horse Hill licences ("the Licence Area") in the Weald Basin, located in the South East of England. UKOG has a net attributable interest of 20.358% in the Licence Area.
The tight Jurassic limestones and shales of the Kimmeridge Clay Formation in the Licence Area are calculated to contain a total OIP of 8.262 billion barrels, with the shales of the Oxford Clay and Lias Formations containing an aggregate OIP of 2.731 billion barrels, as shown in Table 1.
Table 1: Licence Area mean OIP estimates, millions of barrels ("MMBO")
Formation | Mean OIP (MMBO) |
Kimmeridge Clay | 8,262 |
Oxford Clay | 1,017 |
Lias | 1,714 |
TOTAL | 10,993 |
Schlumberger acquired the Horse Hill-1 well ("HH-1") electric logs during the drilling of HH-1. This analysis builds on their previous petrophysical evaluation of HH-1, located in PEDL137 near to London Gatwick Airport, as announced on 5 June 2015. In that previous HH-1 analysis, a total mean OIP, excluding the Upper Portland sandstone oil discovery, of 255 million barrels of oil per square mile was calculated. The current report incorporates the analysis of a further nine wells located within and beyond the Licence Area.
It should be noted, as previously reported, that the HH-1 Upper Portland sandstone oil discovery is a geologically separate oil accumulation from, and additional to, the identified underlying Jurassic tight oil plays.
As previously stated by the Company, the above estimated OIP hydrocarbon volumes should not be construed as recoverable resources or reserves and also should not be construed in any way to reflect potential producibility of hydrocarbons from the formations evaluated. The Company would expect to report estimated recoverable resources following a successful well flow test, in order to comply with the standards of the Society of Petroleum Engineers' 2007 Petroleum Resources Management System.
The Company will integrate the report's findings into the planned flow test of the HH-1 well expected later this year subject to approval by the Environment Agency. This is another key step in the proof of concept process for Jurassic tight oil and the Kimmeridge limestone reservoirs in particular.
The Company is now well advanced with additional internal and external technical studies to fully understand the possible implications of the report's key findings upon the hydrocarbon potential of UKOG's other Weald interests.
Stephen Sanderson, UKOG's Chairman, commented:
"The independent analysis has further tested and given support to our geological model which predicts that the significant volumes of OIP calculated within the tight Jurassic section of HH-1 extend across the Licence Area. The report is thus a further step towards establishing proof of concept for the Jurassic tight oil play potential of Horse Hill and the Weald Basin."
Future Plans:
In parallel with its subsurface and HH-1 flow test studies for the Portland sandstone and underlying tight Jurassic oil zones, the Company has also commissioned related engineering and environmental studies to investigate a conceptual Weald Jurassic field development, with the prime objective that it must respect and preserve the rural beauty and way of life of the area, with minimal environmental impact, while at the same time providing a valuable contribution to the area's economy. This is fundamental to the Company's operating philosophy and policy.
UKOG's interest in the Licence Area and Horse Hill:
The Licence Area, comprising licences PEDL137 and PEDL246, is located on the northern side of the Weald Basin of South East England near Gatwick Airport. The HH-1 discovery well is located in PEDL137. UKOG owns a 30% direct interest in Horse Hill Developments Ltd ("HHDL") and a 1.32% interest in HHDL via its 6% interest in Angus Energy Limited. HHDL is a special purpose company that owns a 65% participating interest and is the operator of the Licence Area. The remaining 35% participating interest in the Licence Area is held by Magellan Petroleum Corporation.
Qualified Person's Statement:
Stephen Sanderson, UKOG's Executive Chairman, who has over 30 years of relevant experience in the oil and gas industry, has approved the information contained in this announcement. Mr Sanderson is a Fellow of the Geological Society of London and is an active member of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists.
Schlumberger is acting exclusively for UKOG and for no one else in connection with the subject matter of this announcement and will not be responsible to anyone other than UKOG in connection therewith. No person or company other than UKOG may directly or indirectly rely upon the contents of its report. Schlumberger is acting in an advisory capacity only and, to the fullest extent permitted by law, disclaims all liability for actions or losses derived from any actual or purported reliance on its report (or any other statements or opinions of Schlumberger) by any person or entity other than UKOG.
For further information please contact:
UK Oil & Gas Investments PLC
Stephen Sanderson / Jason Berry Tel: 020 7440 0640
WH Ireland (Nominated Adviser and Broker)
James Joyce / Mark Leonard Tel: 020 7220 1666
Square 1 Consulting (Public Relations)
David Bick / Mark Longson Tel: 020 7929 5599
Glossary:
discovery | a discovery is a petroleum accumulation for which one or several exploratory wells have established through testing, sampling and/or logging the existence of a significant quantity of potentially moveable hydrocarbons |
electric logs | tools used within the wellbore to measure the rock and fluid properties of surrounding rock formations |
flow test | a flow test or well test involves testing a well by flowing hydrocarbons to surface, typically through a test separator. Key measured parameters are oil and gas flow rates, downhole pressure and surface pressure. The overall objective is to identify the well's capacity to produce hydrocarbons at a commercial flow rate |
limestone | a sedimentary rock predominantly composed of calcite (a crystalline mineral form of calcium carbonate) of organic, chemical or detrital origin. Minor amounts of dolomite, chert and clay are common in limestones. Chalk is a form of fine-grained limestone |
mean | or expected value, is the probability-weighted average of all possible values and is a measure of the central tendency either of a probability distribution or of the random variable characterised by that distribution |
oil in place | the quantity of oil or petroleum that is estimated to exist originally in naturally occurring accumulations before any extraction or production |
petrophysics | the study of physical and chemical rock properties and their interactions with fluids utilising electric logs, physical rock and fluid measurements |
play | a set of known or postulated oil and or gas accumulations sharing similar geologic, geographic, and temporal properties, such as source rock, migration pathways, timing, trapping mechanism, and hydrocarbon type |
recoverable resources | those quantities of petroleum (oil in this case) estimated, as of a given date, to be potentially recoverable from known accumulations |
reserves | those quantities of petroleum anticipated to be commercially recoverable by application of development projects to known accumulations from a given date forward under defined conditions; reserves must further satisfy four criteria: they must be discovered, recoverable, commercial and remaining (as of the evaluation date) based on the development project(s) applied; reserves are further categorized in accordance with the level of certainty associated with the estimates and may be sub-classified based on project maturity and/or characterised by development and production status |
reservoir | a subsurface rock formation containing an individual natural accumulation of moveable petroleum |
sandstone | a clastic sedimentary rock whose grains are predominantly sand-sized. The term is commonly used to imply consolidated sand or a rock made of predominantly quartz sand |
shale | a laminated and fissile very fine-grained sedimentary rock, consisting of compacted silt and clay-size mineral particles. Can contain high proportions of organic material, which if subjected to heat and pressure over geological time can generate petroleum (a petroleum source rock) |
tight oil play, or resource play | a play where oil is found or expected to be present within a reservoir with low permeability, i.e. a tight reservoir. The term, in the case of HH-1, is applied to a play where trapped petroleum accumulations are expected to be pervasive throughout a large area and that are not significantly affected by hydrodynamic influences (also called "continuous-type deposits"). |