A small British oil producer said it had discovered a possible world class oil resource in the countryside to the south of London that could contain billions of barrels of oil.
The London-listed oil explorer UK Oil & Gas Investments (UKOG) (UKOGa.L) said on Thursday up to 100 billion barrels of oil could lie below the green fields around Gatwick Airport, however it cautioned that only a fraction of that could be recovered.
The news sent shares in the small firm up 200 percent and prompted the national press to dub the area "Britain's Dallas". Oil industry analysts struck a note of caution however.
"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," UKOG Chief Executive Stephen Sanderson told the BBC.
Britain has for decades relied on the North Sea for its oil needs, particularly during the 1980s when Margaret Thatcher's government reaped the rewards of booming output and high prices. But output there has started to fade since the turn of the century.
UKOG's oil find is located in Britain's southern Weald Basin, a largely rural area near the airport which lies adjacent to Europe's largest onshore oil field, located at Wytch Farm.
A government-commissioned report said last year the Weald Basin also holds 8.57 billion barrels of shale oil, a type of oil trapped in underground rock which is different to the oil explored for by UKOG.
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