UK Oil Firm Sells Surrey Horse Hill Site for £1m After Supreme Court Climate Defeat

After more than a decade battling to extract oil from the Surrey countryside, the company behind a controversial drilling project has sold the site for £1 million-a fraction of the £25 million it invested. UK Oil and Gas (UKOG) has now rebranded itself as UK Energy Group, pivoting toward clean energy projects after a landmark Supreme Court ruling blocked its expansion plans. Meanwhile, the new owners have begun applying once again for permission to drill at the same location.

UKOG spent more than 10 years developing Horse Hill oilfields near Crawley in Surrey, where the company claimed to have discovered 100 billion barrels of oil. The project became a flashpoint for climate campaigners and local residents who opposed industrialising the rural landscape. In 2024, the Supreme Court delivered what has become known as the Finch Ruling, decreeing that planning authorities must consider the indirect downstream greenhouse gas emissions of oil and gas projects as part of environmental impact assessments. The court overturned a council decision that had permitted expansion at Horse Hill.

The implied value of the Horse Hill licence area reached a peak of £46 million in September 2018 after UKOG agreed to buy a 14.3% economic stake from vendors for £6.6 million. Industry estimates had suggested the tight Jurassic shale and conventional reservoir sections within the Horse Hill licences could contain about 9.24 billion barrels of oil, driving surging valuations in the field. Public records show UKOG invested more than £25 million into the site.

Dramatic Writedown and Exit

Prior to the £1 million sale, UKOG’s financial accounts revealed the company had written down the value of its Horse Hill interests to just £55,360 on its balance sheet. This dramatic collapse in valuation reflects the devastating financial impact of regulatory changes and climate litigation on fossil fuel assets. The company has now changed its name to UK Energy Group, seeking to shift its focus toward salt-cavern energy storage and other clean energy projects.

Stephen Sanderson, the company’s chief executive, acknowledged that while the firm still sees “potentially material resources” at Horse Hill, the divestment presented a “timely and attractive opportunity to complete UKOG’s exit from the UK onshore oil and gas sector.” The company reportedly raised £1 million in 2025 to develop hydrogen-storage projects in south Dorset and Yorkshire, and a further £500,000 to acquire land for a proposed East Yorkshire salt-cavern site.

Guy Prince, the head of energy supply at energy transition think tank Carbon Tracker, described Horse Hill as an example of “regulatory stranding”, in which climate litigation and regulatory shifts undermine the value of a fossil fuel asset. He noted that the same transition risk can have radical financial consequences depending on who owns the asset, with major companies potentially better positioned to absorb losses from impaired investment opportunities.

From Local Newspaper to International Recognition

The battle over Horse Hill began in 2010 when Sarah Finch, a longtime environmentalist and former climate press officer for Greenpeace, spotted a planning notice in her local newspaper proposing oil drilling at the site. Living just 6 miles from the proposed location near Crawley, Finch was shocked to see the oil industry targeting Surrey, a county known for its villages, farms, woods, and commuter railway stations rather than industrial extraction.

Horse Hill formed part of a network of drilling sites proposed to tap the Weald basin, a shale rock formation deep beneath southern England’s home counties. Oil prospectors believed they could use fracking methods to turn Surrey into the new Texas, yielding a potential 100 billion barrels of oil. Finch joined campaigners fighting plans to sink wells in the town of Balcombe, organising mass demonstrations that drew thousands of protesters.

She and her neighbours organised a network of local campaign groups that succeeded in getting a number of drilling applications refused or withdrawn. However, in 2014, oil prospectors drilled a first exploratory well at Horse Hill, followed by a second in 2017.

The Supreme Court Battle

In 2018, Horse Hill Developments Ltd applied to Surrey council for permission to drill four more wells and begin commercial production that would pump more than 24 million barrels of oil over 25 years. Finch and fellow campaigners, who had joined together to form the Weald Action Group, worked to build community opposition. Despite their objections-and just months after declaring a climate emergency–Surrey approved the plan.

The Weald Action Group refused to back down. As they examined the planning application, they became aware of “scope 3 emissions”-those that burning the oil itself would produce. Surrey council had told developers these emissions should be included in an impact statement, but the developers had not complied. This legal argument formed the basis of the challenge that eventually reached the Supreme Court.

The 2024 ruling in favour of Finch and her fellow campaigners established a crucial precedent requiring planning authorities to assess the full climate impact of fossil fuel projects. The decision, now known as the Finch Ruling, has since earned Sarah Finch international recognition, with her winning one of the world’s most prestigious environmental prizes for her decade-long campaign.

Further Setbacks for UKOG

The loss of Horse Hill forms part of a series of recent setbacks for the UKOG group. Former Chancellor Sir Jeremy Hunt welcomed news that an oil and gas company surrendered its exploration rights in his Surrey constituency, calling a gas scheme at Loxley, near the village of Dunsfold, “ridiculous.” The exploration licence covering both the Dunsfold site and another at Broadford Bridge near Billingshurst in West Sussex has been relinquished.

“This is wonderful news and totally the right decision. Drilling in the beautiful village of Dunsfold was always a ridiculous idea and would have ruined the area,” Sir Jeremy said.

The company carried out no construction or drilling work at the Loxley/Dunsfold site, while a well drilled at Broadford Bridge has been mothballed for seven years. By relinquishing the licence, UKOG (234) Ltd lost the right to explore or produce hydrocarbons in the area. In March 2025, UKOG suspended share trading when preparing its annual accounts, marking another critical blow to the struggling company’s operations.