Brockham Well Site (South East) (Weald (Sussex/Surrey))

The Brockham well site is currently one of the most threatening fracking developments in the UK. Due to is status as an already existing conventional production site, operator Angus Energy is hoping to jump straight to producing tight oil from its newly drilled Brockham-X4 sidetrack. This would leapfrog Brockham ahead of more well known fracking sites, such as Preston New Road in Lancashire and Kirby Misperton in North Yorkshire, to be the UK’s only onshore unconventional oil & gas production site, as well as massive amplifying the threat of industrialisation of the Weald from fracking.

The Brockham Well Site is in the PL235 production license and is operated by Angus Energy. The Brockham-X1 conventional oil well was drilled by BP in 1987, and small quantities of oil have been produced there since then. Three more wells have been drilled on the site and Angus has now drilled a sidetrack (without planning permission) to the last well (Brockham-X4), which would target the Portland sandstone, Kimmeridge Clay, and Coralian formations.

The Kimmeridge Clay shale layer is the main unconventional oil formation in the Weald Basin and was previously targeted by the Balcombe and Horse Hill wells. The planned sidetrack for the Brockham well would provide information to advance shale oil exploitation throughout the Weald. Since the Brockham site is permitted for production, unlike Balcombe and Horse Hill, there is the threat that it could be put onto production very quickly.

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.