This cynical and amusing observation from the Protect Dunsfold Group followed our recent post. It struck a chord with us here at the Waverley Web so we thought we would share it with a wider audience.

Will drilling for oil and gas at Dunsfold become more attractive – due to the energy crisis?

This linking of UKOG’s pathetic hydrocarbon exploration efforts with ongoing global crises is transparent say the group.

First expending lots of “private investor” cash to gain local hydrocarbons will help solve climate change!
Next, it will help the country with a shortage of medical tubes and PPE!
Now the Russian invasion of Ukraine makes it imperative to secure gas and oil for Britain and eventually we will return to hydrogen to solve the climate agenda!

Back to Reality

The reality is that no independent person or oil company has any confidence in the suggestion that there is any significant hydrocarbon capable of being recovered under Dunsfold Park.   Those that profess they do, have a vested personal financial interest in saying so despite many years of saying the exact same thing and failing, all the while drawing a significant salary for investing “other people’s money” (and none of their own) in this woeful enterprise.

All the supposed benefits are a long way off, assuming Gove permits drilling at Loxley, which even UKOGs “in the money” Chair Sanderson said at the appeal is in the “wrong place” (as a handy explanation to hard-pressed “investors” when/if he fails again).

If there is a national emergency and Gove believes that UKOG should be allowed to see if they can find anything under Dunsfold Park then he should order the “Biggest Brownfield in Waverley” to make an acre or two available, preferably on the fireground at the end of the disused runway where a couple of years fiddling around with drilling rigs will go unnoticed.

While Dunsfold Park now transforming into the “Biggest landbank in the south of England” is tossed around between US Hedge Funds for half a decade before anyone puts hand to shovel and actually builds any houses, the need for which, in this location, is highly questionable.

If hydrocarbons are found there will be a ready industrial or domestic gas consumer available on Dunsfold Park by the time they are in production and an oil well will sit happily beside the Wings and Wheels museum (already permitted) and the Wey and Arun Canal which, when fully restored, may become a very low carbon means of transport for crude oil down to the sea and on to Fawley, on its way eliminating road transport and revitalising industry by creating a demand for horse-drawn canal oil tankers to transport oil from Dunsfold and even a revitalised Broadford Bridge on to Fawley.

This will make Dunsfold a true hub of a circular industrial history as we head towards a no-carbon future.

But let’s not hold our breath.

Thank you for your take on things ‘Protect Dunsfold” and please keep in touch at contact@waverleyweb.com. 

If this issue wasn’t so serious – it would be quite funny, wouldn’t it?