A planning application has been submitted by UK Oil & Gas for an oil exploration site on the Isle of Wight.
The application seeks permission from the Isle of Wight Council for the construction, operation and decommissioning of a well site at Arreton for the exploration and appraisal of hydrocarbon minerals.
Work is set to take place at a borehole known as Arreton-3 and 1 side-track borehole (Arreton-3z) for a temporary period of 3 years, which involves the siting of plant and equipment, the construction of a new access track, a new junction with the main Newport to Sandown road, the erection of boundary fencing, entrance gates and other ancillary development with restoration to agriculture.
UKOG says it has spent considerable time and undertaken much research to minimise the potential noise and visual impact of the site, which will be largely screened from public view. The oil discovery site will be situated off of Blackwater Road under St George’s Down.
As reported in the Company’s July 2018 AIM admission document, the Arreton conventional oil discovery, a geological analogue of the Company’s Horse Hill oil field (UKOG net 85.635%), contains three stacked Jurassic oil pools containing a third party (Xodus) calculated aggregate gross P50 oil in place of
It is thought that some 127 million barrels of oil are contained within 3 stacked Jurassic oil pools.
Council officials will now consult with statutory consultees, but the 5-week public consultation will be delayed until planning legislation is changed, or the lockdown is eased.
The great thing about oil is that it can be left in the ground!
The planet simply doesn’t need the prospect of another 127m barrels of oil now or in the future.
Oil wealth rarely benefits the local area proportionately compared to other renewable energy schemes which could also be explored (cough cough St. Catherines Tidal Energy Centre?)
Although its actually quite a small amount in the grand scheme of things, once this exploitation gets a foothold on the island, it will be a great deal harder to stop in the future.
But James, undoubtedly your MP will be pushing this as a great idea.
He will welcome it
These companies ought to listen to the message not wanted and not needed here find somewhere on the mainland !
Better to not use oil or gas at all plenty of other cleaner, safer, and more profitable alternatives.
It is important to point out that this inital application is not for 127 million barrels but for an exploration well and a horizontal appraisal well into the Portland strata that only contains a possible 3.7 million barrels of oil (Two and a half days supply for the UK) which, if going into full production could take anything from 5 to 10 years requiring up to 7 horizontal wells to extract…. IF they can produce an initial 500 or 1000 barrels a day diminishing in flow by their expected annual decrease during production of 60 or 70%.
Given UKOG’s current production track record at Horse Hill over the past 4 yrs which is an average of around 80 barrels a day from either one or possibly two wells. this Arreton well site would be totally unsustainable and of no economic benefit to the island at all but will cause many environmental and health impacts.
More information at this link. https://www.frackfreeisleofwight.org/presentations
and this is conventional drilling not fracking sylvia
Whatever it is we don’t need it . Fossil fuels have caused enough damage and deaths in this world and we now have cheap clean and much more profitable alternatives.
John. oil isn’t only used for fuel .we need it to manufacture all sorts of things .without it we would have to back to living in the dark ages .
And with it we have runaway climate change, causing unseasonable droughts, floods, leading to crop failures, disease and famine, have those fires in Australia gone out yet ?
One other thing i remembered…
Last year the IW council declared a ‘Climate Emergency’.
Should this get approval, then it shows a very different attitude about their commitment to future generations.
Any talk of new oil being part of our ‘energy mix’ should be seen as a backtrack.
oil is not just about energy – perhaps you should look up the thousands of household items that have oil/petroleum and other fossil fuel derivatives in.
If we stop using oil – then so many things we use will not be available either.
If we stopped using fossil fuels it would be a much cleaner world , less air pollution no plastics floating in the oceans , no oil spills causing vast devastation to wild life , and the cancer rates near Fawley are terrible. All the data is available.
Anon . Well said .most people simply do not realise what oil and it’s derivatives. Are used for .
They make plastic that is littering the ocean, pollution that is so bad in many parts of the world kids have to stay home, and explosives, is this good ?
This would be a much needed boost to the island economy. As a species we’ve raped and pillaged everywhere else why not here too. If you’re too poor to own several homes all over the world with a nice yacht that’s your problem. UKOG Directors need to make a living too. Depriving such of their Godgiven rights to own the Goyim and all lands is discriminatory and treasonous.
In 2019, the Isle of Wight became a UNESCO Biosphere (one of only seven in the UK), enshrining the decades of work in the preservation of its unique and diverse ecosystems, and celebrating the local endeavours to live harmoniously within them.
I just don’t understand how this is consistent with progressive plans for oil extraction.
what about endless and stupid drive to concrete the entire island over and chuck houses on it by the council
Completely agree. Don’t understand it.
We will need the housing for the millions of displaced people in low lying parts of the uk, the sea levels are rising faster than we think , did you see about the melting glacier in Antarctica, a 3 metre rise within 30 year , and it’s not going to happen on jan the first 2050. Bye bye Portsmouth. All because of climate change caused by fossil fuels.
Really, the oil sector is reeling…. Council should ask for a bankable feasibility study that shows oil prices at a constant $30 a barrel over the life of the project and remediation costs upfront, it will show the project is unbankable…. a very easy evaluation to make
Doubt there will be enough to oil your bike chain.
Check out the UKOG web site. The CEO it seems is just using shareholders cash to provide himself a good living and more IMPORTANTLY has not purchased ANY shares in his own company. A negative sign, so they keep issuing more and more shares to pay for each new project they undertake, which reduces the value of those who already hold shares.
Check out the link to what shareholders think of UKOG’s dire track record:
https://www.lse.co.uk/ShareChat.asp?ShareTicker=UKOG&share=Uk-Oil-and-Gas
your missing the point chris – uk oil and gas will drill an appraisal well – which won’t necessarily go on production. This is to derisk it further, prove up the resource further, assess flow rates and hydrocarbon characteristics.
if the appraisal well likely shows commercial viability they will then drill a horizontal sidetrack to assess longer term flow performance.
Only after all this, will they then put it on production, after an extended well test, most probably.
If all goes to plan it will be about 500bopd when on production.
site restoration here is minimal – a concrete plug for the wellbore – handful of trailers and moving kit – and a load of new turf.
lifting costs per barrel on production won’t be more than around $10 a barrel – seeing as it is around £12GBP per barrel offshore UKCS.
All oil drilling is dangerous, the methane leaks can kill so i have heard, oil leaks are hazardous to health and expensive to clean up, and adjacent underground water can be contaminated.
Pah thems wants a be growin veg for folks ta eat
not messin a bout wid oil smak bang in are main veg growin area
on ta island’
this counsil wil do anythin fer monies
if that ther oil ges inta are water we will ave ta pay
to cleen it up if thems is gon broke
Farming Gent, actually your garbled message has some truth in it.
For the latest drilling site on the mainland did have water issues mixing with the oil.
They spent months plugging the water ingress, and that was only feasible because the water ingress was at the base of the drilled shaft. For had it had been higher, then it would have meant no commercial viable oil, and a dangerous water oil mix, and, as you say, contaminated water would be a disaster as bore holes water all the food stuff crops at Arreton and surrounding areas.
The council will allow any ruination of our beautiful Isle so long as the whiff of a bit more cash to boost coffers, to then make taking more for themselves, then a lower percentage from the enlarged pot is the end game.
Think of all the tanker to take it away, think of all the late night ferries as oil and oil contaminated waste can’t be taken on normal ferries so have to go on the explosive late night crossing.
Will ruin this Island. We need swampy
harry wad – not strictly true – if the productive zones have an aquifer close by that is increasing the oil water ratio then there are various methods of isolating the water ingress – such as packers -it doesn’t matter how high up the well, an expandable packer can seal off that area of the production tubing and hopefully is enough.
There is no such thing as a dangerous oil water mix. Some wells are still profitable at 80% water cut.
They are likely to be using water based drilling mud which is the most environmentally friendly and subject to the least prohibitions on disposal.
Dangerous to the water supply i read that as !
The greedy and the selfish just want as much money as possible and don’t care who gets hurt or dies in the process, climate change will end up causing more problems than we are going through at the moment, look at the science.
the climate has been changing since the planets climate was created billions of years ago and will continue changing long after humans have become extinct.
That is assuming that something else doesn’t happen first – like yellowstone super volcano erupting – which is overdue or another asteroid hit.
The only reason the polar caps are still frozen, is the effects of the last ice age – prior to this, antarctica was a lush, tropical island full of flora and fauna – it will be again at some point and there is nothing we can do to stop this change taking place.
another fact – the north of england still lifts up about an inch a year, as the ground resets itself from the weight of the last ice sheet that covered most of this country in the last ice age, pressed down on it. These geological changes take millenia – and humans are irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.
The amount of carbon dioxide in and on this planet is finite – it is either in the air, in the ground or in the sea – in varying proportions – the only effect we have is by digging up too much of the planets surface, burning too many fossil fuels and releasing too much of the once ground stored CO2 into the air, thus destablising the balance – we need to put more back in the ground to balance things out – to do this – we need more trees – simplest way – stop cutting down the amazon and stop building houses on green fields.
do not forget the elephant in the room – human beings – the planetary population has exploded in the last 50 to 100 years – and we all breathe out C02. The trees breathe in CO2 and expel oxygen, that we need to breathe in. More people, less trees – more C02 in atmosphere.
The natural changes are on geological time scales, not half a century. Read the science.
john smith – who spoke of half a century on natural changes.
The previous waffle, forgot to say stop extracting fossil fuels and stop cutting down forests for the sake of profit (GREED AND SELFISHNESS) and there might be a chance of mitigating some of the worst effects of climate change , i mean the climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels that has happened within the past century , please read the real science not the propaganda by the fossil fuel industry.
Oh dear John. You have been brainwashed havnt you .
Not brainwashed but i have seem the devastation caused by fossil fuels and it’s derivatives, the only reason to want it would be financial in my opinion.
John I take it when you go to work everyday .you do it for free .?
The electricity for the car does cost, but if you buy it from a green energy company it doesn’t COST THE EARTH . In many cases it is free because during the day so much is produced they give it away, look up electric cars, fossil fuels are as dead as the dinosaurs it comes from.
Ah, but when Antarctica was a rain forest it wasn’t situated at the South Pole.
John climate change is not caused by us .look at the science .
I wish you were correct , but according to the IPCC and many other sources you are completely misinformed , but i do find your banter amusing.
John .without oil you cannot build an electric car .and oil is not derived from dinosaurs . Climate change is natural not caused by oil .stop peddling fake news .
Tell the truth is my motto want to join in ?
Hope they find oil this time. We need it.
Stick a wind farm in Wellow.
UKOG – Unlimited Killing Of Greenery.
Don’t forget the people dying as well but UKOG don’t seem to care.