UK Oil & Gas share price falls as it admits Horse Hill licence will expire within months
UK Oil & Gas, aka UKOG, aka the "Gatwick gusher" has admitted its licences to explore the area around Gatwick Airport where it discovered 100bn barrels of oil are due to expire shortly – one in the next six months.
The news prompted UKOG's share price to tumble more than seven per cent to 2.86p in mid-morning trading.
It's been an embarrassing few weeks for the Aim-listed company, whose shares exploded more than 300 per cent in intraday trading when it revealed the discovery of a site a Horse Hill near Gatwick, which held "up to 100bn barrels of oil" earlier this month.
Days later, the story was rather different. The company issued a "clarification" saying that its original figure was probably a little over-optimistic – actually it was probably more like "between 50bn-100bn". And of that, between three and 15 per cent could actually be extracted.
In a statement to the stock exchange today, it added that its licences to explore the area expire on 30 September 2015 and 30 June 2019 respectively, although Horse Hill Developments, the operator of the two licences (and of which UKOG owns 30 per cent), has applied to the Oil & Gas Authority for a one-year extension to the one due to run out soonest.
Planning permission is already in place for flow tests on Horse Hill. Investors will keenly await the results.