Shares in all the major participants in the Horse Hill project were on the move as UK Oil & Gas Investments PLC (LON:UKOG) announced drilling will start shortly at the Broadford Bridge-1 well.
All regulatory permissions are now in place and spudding is expected shortly, it said in a statement Thursday evening.
Broadford Bridge-1 (BB-1) will test a geological look-alike to Horse Hill and is 14 miles away located on the southern flank of the Weald Basin.
The well is designed to test both the southerly extension of the Kimmeridge Limestone oil play across the Weald Basin and its development within the licence.
Conventional drill techniques will test four naturally fractured Kimmeridge Limestone reservoir horizons, the uppermost two of which were successfully flow tested at the company's Horse Hill oil discovery in 2016.
The BB-1 well is located in the 300 sq Km PEDL234 licence, which is 100% owned UKOG subsidiary Kimmeridge Oil & Gas Limited.
BB-1 is expected to play a crucial part in determining the full potential of the Weald Basin, as it will gather the comprehensive data set so far over the very deep Kimmeridge Limestone sequence.
Data collection will include conventional coring and electric logging to be followed by a flow test to test its commercial potential.
Stephen Sanderson, UKOG's executive chairman said: "The BB-1 well will add materially to our knowledge and understanding of the Kimmeridge Limestone play within the licence and across the wider Weald Basin. BB-1 is a key piece of the Kimmeridge Limestone puzzle."
The Gusher
Known as the Gatwick Gusher because of its proximity to Britain’s second airport, the Horse Hill-1 well flowed 40-degree API oil at a natural flow rate of 1,365 barrels per day (bopd).
The overlying Portland flowed 35-37 API gravity crude at a stable pumped rate of 323 bopd.
UKOG’s (LON:UKOG) licence area is on the southern flank of the basin and is described as a mirror image of the fault block at Horse Hill, host to one of the most important onshore discoveries of recent times.
The company, which wholly owns the licence, plans to drill into the Kimmeridge section at a 50-degree angle. It raised £6.5mln at 0.8p each to fund BB-1 and five conventional discoveries in the Weald basin.
Other investors include Solo OIL (LON:SOLO), which owns 6.5% of the licences via its 10% ownership of the operator Horse Hill Developments, Primorus Investments (LON:PRIM), Gunsynd (LON:GUN) and Alba Mineral Resources (LON:ALBA).