£600bn oil find near Gatwick

Oil reserves worth £600bn at current price have been discoveres at Horse Hill near Gatwick airport, and analaysi suggests local area could hold 158m barrels of oil per square mile, of which only 100 billion barrels could be recovered according to exploration firm UK Oil & Gas Investments (UKOG).

The North Sea has produced about 45 billion barrels in 40 years.

“We think we’ve found a very significant discovery here, probably the largest [onshore in the UK] in the last 30 years, and we think it has national significance,” Stephen Sanderson UKOG’s chief executive  said.

ButGreenpeace scientist Doug Parr said exploiting the find would be to ignore everything we have learnt about climate change. It’s time we invested in clean technologies that can provide safe and cheap energy for decades to come.