The Weald Oil in Place
Oil in Place (“OIP”) represents the total volume of all hydrocarbons in the ground before any extraction or production by wells. As previously stated by UKOG, it is emphasised that, prior to any flow testing, estimated OIP volumes should not be construed as recoverable resources, contingent or prospective resources, or reserves and also should not be construed in any way to reflect potential producibility of hydrocarbons from the formations evaluated prior to any successful flow tests and the assessment of an estimated recovery factor to these OIP volumes.
Nutech Calculated Weald OIP and Comparisons with Global Basin and Field Examples
The table and diagrams below illustrate Nutech’s October 2015 calculated OIP for a 1261 sq mile area of Interest (“AOI”) over the Weald Basin and for eight of the company’s licence areas contained within the AOI. These OIP numbers should be regarded as Total Petroleum Initially In Place as defined by the Society of Petroleum Engineer’s Petroleum Resource Management System of resource reporting. These charts should not be misconstrued so as to convey that the Weald Naturally-Fractured Oil Plays contains proven recoverable oil or that commercial flow rates and recoverable volumes have been established. Until further work is undertaken by UKOG, there is no assurance that oil can be recovered in commercial quantities and at economic flow rates from the tight oil plays of the Weald.
The calculated estimate of 124 BBO used in the charts below represents the total Gross OIP underlying the entire 1,261 square mile AOI of the central Weald basin and not that contained within UKOG’s licences (see Table 1 and the map below). Please refer to the RNS section to view the details of Nutech’s October 2015 analyses, the distribution of OIP over UKOG’s licence areas and the definition of terms used (click here). Please refer to the Reports & Presentations section to view the Executive Summary of Nutech’s October 2015 report (click here).
Table 1: Nutech Jurassic Oil OIP - AOI and UKOG Aggregate Gross and Net Licence Interests
Map showing the 1261 sq. km Weald Area of Interest and UKOG Licence Interests
It should be noted that the term Jurassic oil refers to the three plays, or petroleum systems, contained within the source rock shale sequences and interbedded limestones of the Kimmeridge Clay, Oxford Clay and Lias Formations underlying the Weald area of southern England. The OIP calculated for each of the three play constituents over the 1261 sq mile AOI and the UKOG aggregate 151 sq mile licence interests is shown in tables 2 and 3.
Table 2: AOI (1261 sq. miles) Jurassic Oil OIP Broken Out by Play
Table 3: UKOG Licence Areas (151 sq. miles) Jurassic OIL OIP, Gross and Net aggregate values
It should be noted that UKOG’s primary focus is the three tight Kimmeridge limestones contained within and interbedded within the organic rich source rock shales of the Kimmeridge Clay Formation. Nutech calculate that the three limestones contain a gross P50 OIP of 2.1 BBO within UKOG’s licence areas and a gross P50 OIP of 19.5 BBO within the overall AOI.
The US Department of Energy’s Energy Information Agency (“EIA”) 2013 report on UK shale resources, calculates a Lias shale OIP of 53 BBO unrisked and 17 BBO risked over a 1740 sq. mile area of the Weald. This figure does not include any potential for limestones interbedded within the shale section. The EIA report is available on our website (click here). Note: the EIA report does not include OIP for the Oxford Clay and Kimmeridge Clay rock formations as prior to the Horse Hill-1 well results they were not thought to have been buried deep enough to generate oil.
To help put Nutech’s (October 2015) calculated total gross P50 Weald Jurassic oil OIP of 124 billion barrels (“BBO”) in a global resource perspective, this section also contains a series of published Oil in Place and estimated recoverable resource numbers of example global tight oil plays, plus one super-giant conventional oil field and the North Sea.
Chart Illustrating the Component Parts of Jurassic Oil OIP over the 1261 sq mile AOI
Weald Area of Interest Jurassic Oil OIP Versus Global Basin and Field Examples
Weald Jurassic Oil Versus North Sea Conventional and Potential Oil and Gas In North Sea Kimmeridge Shales