Company behind failed Surrey oilfield project sells site at massive loss — SkimNews
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- UK Oil and Gas (UKOG) sold the Horse Hill Surrey oilfield site for £1m after investing more than £25m into it, with the site's implied value having peaked at £46m in September 2018 on industry estimates of ~9.24bn barrels of oil in the licence area.
- UKOG has rebranded as UK Energy Group and raised £1m in 2025 for hydrogen-storage projects in south Dorset and Yorkshire plus £500,000 for an East Yorkshire salt-cavern site, with CEO Stephen Sanderson calling the divestment a "timely and attractive opportunity" to exit UK onshore oil and gas.
- The 2024 Supreme Court "Finch Ruling" overturned a council decision to allow expansion by decreeing that planning authorities must consider indirect downstream greenhouse gas emissions, a precedent now hanging over the renewed Horse Hill application.
- New owner Energy B, through Horse Hill Developments Ltd, submitted a renewed planning application to Surrey county council in May for four production wells, an oil processing area, tanker-loading facilities and a fluid reinjection well, estimating 2.3m tonnes of lifetime greenhouse gas emissions but calling the impact "insignificant" (0.05% of the projected UK carbon budget).
- Campaigner Sarah Finch called the new environmental assessment's shortcomings "serious," said the council's decision would be a "significant test case" for climate-risk assessment post-Finch ruling, and warned the Weald Action Group would not rule out another judicial review if the council approves.
- Guy Prince of Carbon Tracker framed Horse Hill as an example of "regulatory stranding," noting that transition risk "can have really radical financial consequences" for small companies concentrated on a single project.
Why it matters: For UKOG shareholders, the £1m sale against £25m+ invested crystallises what Carbon Tracker calls "regulatory stranding" — climate litigation and the Finch ruling have made a single-asset fossil fuel bet unviable. For Surrey county council, the imminent decision is the first real test of whether post-Finch environmental assessments force a reckoning or remain a paper exercise, with judicial review threatened if it greenlights the 2.3m-tonne project.
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