Should have posted this a week ago, but I’ve been sitting on the naughty step with Elfinsafety for pretending to be someone else (“Mr Woppit” being the real me…).

Surrey County Council have refused permission to drill for oil on Leith Hill to “Europa Oil and Gas Limited”.

Hurrah!.

Is that the verdict after the appeal? Haven’t had an email from the opposition for a few weeks.

Before…

Why hurahhh?

Should drill where they like IMO, why not? You a NIMBY??

Great news.

Exactly – why hurrah??

Is that a quailified or unqualified objection?
Onshore production in the UK, in very environmentally sensitive areas is nothing new….

You a NIMBY??

Thing about being accused of Nimbyism is that no one else will bother generally, so its normally up to those who live closest or use the area, how many times have you objected to stuff without having a real intertest in it?

So you want cars, buses, and electric, just where is all the oil going to come from to provide these, foreign countries we illegaly start a war with, and randomly kill the locals, but thats already happening, isnt it.

Surrey County Council have refused permission to drill for oil on Leith Hill to “Europa Oil and Gas Limited”.

Hurrah!.

You’ll change your mind when fuel is £20 a litre and it’s £15000 to fly to Spain.

Blimey, I thought it was good news too 🙁

That’s a pity. Oil is handy stuff so I hear.

Indeed, you hear all this bolox spouted about supourting british jobs, manufacturing, production, anything but banking etc etc etc.

But as soon as a company offers to invest, it’s ohhh no no no no, we don’t actualy want it in our area thankyouverymuch.

That’s a pity. Oil is handy stuff so I hear.

Only if you are linked to its profit or production. Polar bears can go to ****. Surrey Hills are 😀

There’s a couple of similar installations I pass when cycling occasionally – Poole Harbour/ Purbecks Wytch Farm & Kimmeridge and a few dotted around Hampshire.

They are quite unobtrusive – just a small fenced compound with a nodding donkey. Obviously short term disruption during drilling & installation of pipelines but quickly disappears back into the undergrowth.

Certainly less obvious than a pylon, wind turbine or brick folley for example

Funnily the people that I’ve met and talked to who actually LIVE around there are really nice. You’d think having a few quid in your pocket would make you a bitter but richer person than comparable cyclists but no.

The ones that I talked to LIKE cyclists. So that most certainly doesn’t make them classic NIMBY’ists.

The fact that we all have a shared love and passion for the area is beatiful.

The fact that we all have a shared love and passion for the area is beatiful.

There is absolutely no reason why production should have a lasting negative impact on the area

Oil exploration is one thing but when it moves to production is different no?

Shouldn’t be, no. Exploration and the infrastructure development would cause the biggest disruption.

See details of BP’s Wytch Farm facility – SSSI, SPA, the lot…

BP link

And if you don’t fancy the “Company line”…

wiki

Oil exploration is one thing but when it moves to production is different no?

In a situation like this there will be less impact during production than exploration. No one is suggesting putting an entire processing facility on the site, only drilling initially and if there is oil a wellhead later. There are quite few installtions like this on the south coast. From the opposition that I’ve seen people seem to think that there will be drilling for three years. There won’t be. Major oil fields, which this isn’t, don’t take three years to drill.

Good how STWers know better than the local council about the impact of the drill site.
I’m always so impressed by the depth of knowledge on here.

The production phase was supposed to be a small temporary building – no nodding donkeys.

Much of the disruption would have been caused by the prospecting and building – getting heavy lorries up a small, sunken lane, and then transporting the oil once it was brought to the surface.

As others have said, I’m not convinced I should be anti- this, as I’m an oil user (like pretty much everyone else). Leith Hill is pretty much my back garden, by the way.

Good how STWers know better than the local council about the impact of the drill site.
I’m always so impressed by the depth of knowledge on here.

Good to know that some STWers are totally ignorant of how local authorities work…?

How many eleceted members on Surrey’s planning committee will have any oil E&P or downstream environmental experience??? I wouldn’t mind betting fewer than have posted on this thread 😉

Planning committees have a rich record of making peculiar decisions. Even when other bodies – EA, Natural England, or their own officers etc recommend granting / witholding consent, the comittee may well take a completely different line…

FWIW this sort of thing is my day job…

Good how STWers know better than the local council about the impact of the drill site.
I’m always so impressed by the depth of knowledge on here.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that there are quite a few people here who know far more about how oil exploration and production actually works than anyone employed by the local council. And yes, I’m one of them.

I’ll go out on a limb here and say drill anywhere you want but I’d prefer it wasnt somewhere like there. x Peace.

drill anywhere you want but I’d prefer it wasnt somewhere like there

Having an economically viable reservoir to exploit would be handy though, ehh? 😉

I’ll go out on a limb here and say drill anywhere you want but I’d prefer it wasnt somewhere like there. x Peace.

As a general rule we tend only to drill where we think there might be oil to exploit, there not being much point in drilling anywhere else.

Being in the USA and not knowledgeable of the specific area, is it located such that it could be accessed by diretional drilling? They can do that from quite a distance with current technology? Of course if it is a smaller Expl./Prod. company, they might not have that capablity like the big oil companies.

Is there much onshore oil/gas producton in the UK? Familiar with the North Sea operations, but never think about/hear about onshore production in the UK.

busydog – BP operate Western Europe’s largest onshore field at Wytch Farm, in Dorset (see links above).

Wytch Farm is located in a very sensitive area, with many stautory conservation and landscape protection designations. Directional drilling was extensively used – with some reservoirs 8-10km from the wellheads…

I would expect the same approach would be stipulated for any other UK onshore developments.

There are already onshore rigs in the South. Have been since WW2. Nobody notices them because they’re just nodding donkeys.

I’d happily have one near me. Certainly a lot less conspicuous and more useful than a wind turbine.

I can’t believe that after all the bombing we’ve done in the Middle East/North Africa, with all deaths it caused to man, women, and children – through collateral damage, some people still want oil wells in England’s green and pleasant land.

Leith Hill is for the enjoyment of overpaid and overfed cyclists, who need somewhere to spend their leisure time pursuing their expensive and overindulgent hobby. Oil wells are for the deserts of North Africa and the Middle East, where environmental issues are of no concern and where an oil well isn’t exactly a ‘blot on the landscape’, and where the local people have more important things to worry about. Most of them probably don’t even own mtbs ffs.

I’m convinced – let them drill for oil in the Surrey Hills after all it’s only a bit of countryside.

Ernie I imagine you are a prime and powerful example of the best Anglo-Saxon stock and none of your bike bits come from outside these shores then.

Feel free to drill here in Manchester. Not in somewhere like in the Surrey hills though eh?

Never mind about that hora – when I drive to Leith Hill for a bike ride, I expect the diesel in my car to come from the middle east, not **** Surrey ffs.

rkk01 and 5thEleant—thanks, I wasn’t aware of how much onshore production there was in the UK as we don’t hear much about it–makes sense considering the vast North Sea production fields.

I agree having a well pumping is a lot less obtrusive than a wind turbine.
I wish I had a well-head pumping in my backyard—wouldn’t be sitting here at work posting on STW—be doing it at home.

rkk01 – I thought that BP had sold Wytch farm, Wareham, Beacon & Kimmeredge fields to Perenco for a mere $610million in cash!

Honestly I wouldn’t mind if the drillpoints were in brownfield/industrial sites or sink hole towns with rampant council estates. If the oil field is soo big to make it profitable then side-drilling (or whatever you call it is fine).

I neither live in the Surrey Hills
I can’t afford to buy there
I rarely ride there now

But I do love the place. I for one aren’t bitter, twisted or blame thatcher and the capitalists for my own childhood.

X

I remember drilling at Humbley Grove in Hampshire. Short lease road which was half farm track anyway, out of sight of virtually everywhere. Spent thousands sound-proofing the rig so that only a whisper could be heard at 150 metres. We did get complaints about a our half-pissed derrick man belting out a bit of Frank Sinatra whilst tripping pipe from 120′ up though.

rkk01 – I thought that BP had sold Wytch farm, Wareham, Beacon & Kimmeredge fields to Perenco for a mere $610million in cash!

I know it’s been announced. Has that completed now?

Oh dear, oil in Surrey.

Expect to be liberated by the USA any day now. Unfortunately this will involve flattening the entire county, and hit squads targeting elected officials… 🙂