Onshore oil firm UK Oil & Gas Investments PLC (LON:UKOG) has gone on the front foot in its PR battle as it advances a drilling programme at the Broadford Bridge project, in West Sussex, in the south of England.
At the project, which is a follow-up to the so-called ‘Gatwick Gusher’ Horse Hill discovery, the company is drilling a well bore to test the high profile Kimmeridge oil play.
Broadford Bridge is described as a “geological lookalike” of Horse Hill where a well last year flowed 1,688 barrels of oil per day in testing.
Drilling began in late May. As drilling got underway the company said Broadford Bridge would be a “zero risk drilling site”.
As with a number of onshore UK projects the venture has been under the scrutiny of environmentalists, nonetheless, UKOG has published a fact-sheet detailing the composition of drilling fluids used in the well.
BROADFORD BRIDGE: Fact, not fiction. Full list of drilling fluids published https://t.co/loZn0VgFu8
— UKOG (@UKOGlistedonAIM) June 14, 2017
UKOG described the drilling fluid as “primarily water” though the detailed list of additives reads somewhat like a shopping list for a baker rather than a hydrocarbons explorer.
The fluids being used at the Broadford Bridge site, according to the document, also contains plant starch, baking soda, lemon or lime juice, common salt, as well as more industrial sounding ingredients such as potassium sulphate, cement, silicate, and other compounds designed to inhibit metal corrosion, reduce foam and to restrict bacteria growth.