Oil price rise sees black gold flow from Lidsey well

Exploration company Midmar Energy Onshore is producing the first barrels of oil from the Lidsey site.

It has taken 24 years since the prospect of production at the rural location was first raised.

But the timing could not be better for Britain as the oil field, small though it is, makes a contribution towards the country's energy needs at a time of record high oil prices.

Current production levels are 30 barrels a day '“ or 10,920 barrels a year. With prices around $135 a barrel, that means the Lidsey well will yield about $1.474m of oil in its first year. Each barrel contains 159 litres of oil.

Midmar managing director Tom Redman said: "Because the oil price is so high, it makes oil fields such as Lidsey more economic to use. It would not make sense if the price was lower. One of the reasons why no-one decided to touch the field for 20 years is because it's a small field and it wasn't worth it."

According to the 2005 planning application for the well, the site could contain 230m barrels and as much as 600m barrels.

But Mr Redman declined to give a more updated figure for the reserves because the figure was regarded as commercially sensitive information.

The Lidsey site off the A29 is connected geologically to the much larger oil fields around south-west Sussex.

A licence to explore Lidsey for oil was granted by the government in 1984. The oil field was discovered some 3,000-4,000ft below ground three years later by Carless Exploration.

Edinburgh Oil and Gas took over the site in 2000. Bournemouth-based Midmar became a partner in the operation the following year. It became the sole operator in 2005 when it submitted the planning application that October for permission to begin extractions there. The company was granted the permit to operate the oilfield in October, 2007.

This expensive work paid off recently when oil started flowing and being pumped to the surface by a 'nodding donkey' mechanism. Also known as a pump jack, this is the overground drive for a reciprocating piston pump installed in a borehole.

It is used to mechanically lift liquid out of the well if there is not enough bottom hole pressure for the liquid to flow all the way to the surface.

The oil is taken by road tanker to the BP Hamble oil refinery before it enters the oil supply network.

A small number of staff work at the oilfield which has near round-the-clock security to protect the equipment.

The Lidsey field is located on the southern flank of the Weald Basin in a tilted fault block structure which lies on the hinge line of a tertiary inversion feature named the Portsdown axis.

That's geologist speak for the fact that movements in the rocks which made up the Earth's surface occurred tens of millions of years ago. Those movements caused faults in the rocks' surfaces.

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Some of those trapped sediments laid down by fossils, which turned into liquids, kept in place by the newer layers of materials which were placed on top.

The main reservoir at Lidsey is formed of Middle Jurassic great oolite limestone, dating from 176-161 million years ago, sealed by Oxford clay and is similar to the nearby Storrington, Singleton and Horndean fields.

The time the Lidsey oil reservoir was created saw dinosaurs such as megalosaurs appear and conifers and ferns common around the planet.

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