Fracking Threat To Weald Grows As Horse Hill Plans Advance
Plans for the expansion of the UK Oil and Gas Investments (UKOG) fracking site at Horse Hill in Surrey are slowly moving forward despite delays caused by opposition from local communities, and UKOG is hoping for a decision on the plans later in the year. The planning application is for the retention of the existing site, drilling of 4 new production wells and 1 waste injection well. In Sussex and Surrey, the industry is targeting the shallow Kimmeridge Clay shale layer for shale/tight oil. The Kimmeridge Clay is often compared by the fracking industry to the Bakken Shale, where over 15,000 wells have been drilling to date.
Fracking Threat To The Weald
Additional Information
For answers to some of the wider questions being studious ignored by the mainstream media see:
Community Gathers Outside Fracking Site In Balcombe, Sussex (Click To Enlarge)
The fracking of large swathes of Sussex and Surrey for shale/tight oil is a growing threat with four major test sites already drilled and a fifth planned. In West Sussex, Broadford Bridge near Billingshurst and Balcombe have already been drilled, while in Surrey
The combination of these developments poses a significant fracking threat in the Weald Basin, threatening not only the local communities near these sites but the whole of South East England. Fracking companies, principly UK Oil and Gas Investments (UKOG), Angus Energy and Europa Oil & Gas are drilling these test wells into the Kimmeridge Clay shale formation, and are now pushing forward with plans to flow test the wells for unconventional tight/shale oil. This is just the beginning of attempts to finance much larger plans to frack whole swaths of Sussex and Surrey. Exploitation of tight oil would mean drilling hundreds or thousands of wells across large areas of Sussex and Surrey.
Community Demonstrates Opposition To Leith Hill Fracking Site (Click To Enlarge)
These developments are part of a plan to frack the Weald, coating a large part of Sussex and Surrey, in thousands of wells at typical densities of 4-8 wells per square mile. The companies presently involved do not have the billions needed for this however, and are currently involved in gathering data to facilitate such investment. If this creeping drilling and testing is not vigorously resisted the consequences for communities across Sussex and Surrey will be dire. The Kimmeridge Clay shale layer is the main unconventional oil target in the Weald Basin, but the deeper Lias shale is also a potential target for unconventional exploitation.
See Fracking The Weald: The Growing Tight Oil Threat for more details. If you would like to take action or form a group in your area we can help with a pack of guides and publicity, just email: outreach@frack-off.org. See below for a video outlining the tight oil threat in this region:
