Black gold: ‘100 billion barrels of oil’ discovered beneath Gatwick Airport

The estimated size of an oil find near Gatwick Airport has been upgraded to 100 billion barrels. UK Oil & Gas Investments (UKOG) said the Horse Hill-1 well in the Weald Basin was now thought to hold 158 million barrels per square mile. In May 2014, the British Geological Survey estimated the Weald Basin to hold around 4.4 billion barrels of shale oil. UKOG described the find as a possible “world class” resource with the potential for “significant daily oil production.”

You’ve got to work through government process and to work with the local community. Everybody expects you to snap your fingers and all of a sudden the magic panacea is there.

UKOG Chairman David Lenigas

The company’s chairman David Lenigas, said it would create “many thousands of jobs” but cautioned that it would take a long time to begin production. The U.S.-based firm which studied the reservoir estimated that recovery of the oil would be limited at between 3% and 15% of the total. It also insisted there was no need to use the controversial extraction process, known as fracking, to get access to the oil. Lenigas said:  "Horse Hill is a conventional well, with conventional testing and we’ve got permission from the government authorities for a conventional programme. There will be no fracking at Horse Hill.“

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