Horse Hill Application

It appears that Angus Energy temporarily left Brockham after unexpectedly finding water in the new sidetrack well (see below for more detail), but the Horse Hill site – only a 13min drive from Brockham – is currently facing a huge expansion. Horse Hill Developments Ltd have submitted their planning application for the drilling of five new wells (one for water reinjection) and other infrastructure to enable the production of oil from six wells for a period of 25 years.

Please object to the plans before the deadline of February 18th (although the County Council will consider objections up to the time of the planning meeting, currently 20th March).

• To view the planning application and comment on this application click here.
• To view a summary of proposals on Drill Or Drop? click here.
• Frack Free Surrey put together a handy list of points to consider in your comment, available here.
• This video is a great summary of the threat of back-to-back horizontal drilling and acid stimulation threatening the Weald Basin.

Operational Update for Brockham

On 4^th February, Angus Energy announced that the Brockham wellsite is producing water. The company said it was putting together what it called a “further engineering program” to isolate the water zone, and that a maintenance rig was expected to return to the site. Later that week, the testing kit including a flare stack was cleared from the site, and on Friday Angus announced that it had submitted an application to the Oil and Gas Authority for an extended well test at Balcombe, and that the operation “will also allow the utilization of the current well testing package from Brockham.”

Angus Energy News

There have recently been significant changes at the top of Angus Energy, which have been reported in several national newspapers. Managing director Paul Vonk was forced to resign in what the media describe as a “boardroom coup” spearheaded by Jonathan Tidswell-Pretorius – the ex Chairman who stepped down last summer after questions were raised over his involvement in Angus Energy share transfers. Mr Vonk is replaced by George Bingham, 8th Earl of Lucan. The company has also announced taking out another loan for £3M.

Please see the “News” part of our website for more detail.

Talk Fracking Blog

Many thanks to Talk Fracking for publishing our blog post on the Brockham campaign so far through the eyes of Ian M., a local Brockham resident and one of our members. Here’s an excerpt:

“For me, the last two years have been an education in the underhand practices of the oil and gas industry, their disrespect for local communities and manipulation of the legal system to get their way. It has also showed the toothlessness of regulatory bodies which are supposed to protect the safety and well-being of the public, but one way or another end up rubber-stamping the industry’s malfeasance, making a mockery of the government’s original claims of gold-standard regulation when it comes to fracking and other unconventional oil extraction.”

Thanks for reading and do get in touch if you’d like to get involved.

BOW

Twitter: @BrockhamWatch

Facebook