A company, UK Oil & Gas Investments PLC (UKOG), has today announced they believe there are over 100 million barrels of oil available for drilling on and just-off the Isle of Wight.
They also said it’s now ‘Drill ready.’
Huge amounts of oil
Their initial calculations of the oil located in the off-shores site to most likely be 116.5 million barrels of oil within two areas.
Their figures show it could be as high as 285 million barrels.
In addition to this, they estimate 197 billion standard cubic feet of gas could be available.
The sites
The sites are located in the offshore and ‘onshore transition area’ along the south-west coast of the Isle of Wight.
Essentially the offshore site is the water off the Back of The Wight – stretching along the Military Road from Whale Chine through to close to Freshwater Bay.
The onshore portion encompasses Brook, Brighstone, Mottistone and Hulverstone.
Original rights bought by another
In 2012 a different company, Northern Petroleum Plc, were awarded the rights to carry out oil drilling operations in two areas off the South West shores of the Isle of Wight.
Holding increased
UK Oil & Gas Investments bought UK production and exploration oil and gas licence interests from Northern Petroleum PLC in July 2014 for £1.5m. Giving them a 65% interest in the Isle of Wight area.
UKOG carried out a further purchase in Feb 2015 to increase the size of its holding in P1916 (located immediately offshore of the Isle of Wight), from 65% to 72.5%.
A further deal has taken their holding to 77.5%. Magellan Petroleum (UK) Limited owns the remaining 22.5% interest.
The full details of the announcement.
At the time of publishing, the representatives of the company we contacted to clarify items in this report hadn’t returned our call.
