UK Oil & Gas Investments PLC (LON:UKOG) appears to be making fast progress with its Broadford Bridge project in southern England, where it is unearthing a potentially significant discovery.
In a stock market statement, UKOG has announced that the Environmental Agency has now granted a permit for the company to conduct a flow test on the Broadford Bridge well.
"This enables us to move onto the next phase of operation at Broadford Bridge,” said Stephen Sanderson, UKOG executive chairman.
“Our drilling and comprehensive coring programme has been very successful and we look forward to equally positive results from our flow testing operation."
A potentially significant oil discovery
On Thursday afternoon, UKOG announced an update on the Broadford Bridge programme where the company has taken thirteen cores, totalling 554 feet, from the Kimmeridge oil play that was previously tested successfully at the nearby Horse Hill well.
It said that it recovered twelve continuous cores, totalling 493 feet, through the KL3 and KL4 fractured limestone and shale reservoir section, and one core of 61 feet was taken from the KL2 reservoir zone.
Drilling work is ongoing, and a section of the KL1 has not yet been reached. It expected at around 5,100 feet. Electronic logging and flow testing is expected to follow shortly after the drilling completes.
The company noted that Horse Hill successfully tested the KL3 and and KL4 zones, flowing 1,365 barrels of oil per day. In the Broadford Bridge well, wet gas was observed in those zones during the programme.
There was also significant ‘lost circulation zones’ in the KL3 and KL4 which, according to UKOG, indicates a presence of well-developed and spatially connected natural-fracture system, and it added that there are abundant fractures in limestone and shale observed throughout cores.
An important milestone
Sanderson, on Thursday, said: "The highly successful coring programme continues to provide supporting evidence that BB-1 has possibly encountered an extensive oil-filled natural fracture network, sitting within both the Kimmeridge Limestones and oil generative Kimmeridge shales.
“The observed light mobile oil, together with the indications of a possible thick gross oil zone within a geological feature without any conventional oil trapping configuration, provides further ‘proof of concept’ that the Kimmeridge of the central Weald may contain an extensive, thick, continuous oil deposit.
“This is an important milestone for the company.
“I look forward to the following electric logging and flow test programmes, which will hopefully provide both further ‘proof of concept’ and demonstrate the commerciality of BB-1."