Planning permission has been granted for further flow testing and drilling at the Horse Hill development in the south-east of England.
Surrey County Council’s Planning and Regulatory Committee granted planning permission for the operator to proceed with extended flow tests and testing of a sidetrack and a new borehole at the site in the Weald basin.
The appraisal programme will now go ahead, while a similar extended flow testing programme has been completed at the Broadford Bridge well site in West Sussex.
The Horse Hill-1 Kimmeridge Limestone and Portland oil discovery well is located within onshore exploration Licence PEDL137, on the northern side of the Weald Basin, 3 km north of Gatwick Airport.
As previously reported in February and March 2016, two naturally-fractured limestone members within the Kimmeridge section, known as KL3 and KL4, flowed dry, 40-degree API oil, at an aggregate stabilised natural flow rate of 1,365 barrels per day (“bopd”) with no clear indication of depletion.
The overlying Portland flowed dry, 35-degree API gravity oil at a stable pumped rate of 323 bopd. The Portland oil was produced at the rod-pump’s maximum achievable rate and thus flow was constrained by the pump’s mechanical capacity.
Horse Hill Developments is a special purpose limited company vehicle formed to drill the Horse Hill-1 well and appraise and develop any hydrocarbons found.
HHDL is a consortium of eight natural resource companies of which the largest shareholder is UK Oil & Gas Investments PLC (UKOG) with 48% shareholding
Stephen Sanderson, exexcutive chairman of UKOG, said: “This is welcome news for the planned Horse Hill Portland and Kimmeridge appraisal programmes, both of which are key steps towards our goal of delivering stable first oil production by early 2019.
“Horse Hill operations are scheduled to follow the current Broadford Bridge-1z flow testing and will build upon and benefit from the many learnings and insights gained to date. I look forward to HHDL’s return to Horse Hill.”