Angus Energy announced today it had restarted oil production at its Brockham oil site in Surrey after a break of more than three years.

The site, near Dorking, last extracted oil for eight months in 2018. Before then, it had produced from October 2002-January 2016, with some gaps.

The company said in a statement, oil was currently flowing from the Portland formation of the BRX2-Y well, at a rate of 50 barrels of oil per day.

Previous production at Brockham had averaged 66 barrels of oil per day.

Another 50 barrels a day of formation water was also coming out of the well, Angus said . This was being reinjected daily into the BRX3 well, it added.

The Environment Agency granted consent in March 2022 for the reinjection of formation water at Brockham.

The water must be produced at Brockham. Planning permission and a radioactive substances permit would be needed to inject formation water from other sites at Brockham.

Last month, planning permission was granted for oil extraction from another Brockham well, the BRX4. The permission also covered plans to reperforate part of the BRX4 well in the Portland formation.

Angus Energy said today it was discussing with regulators its reperforation plans and the abandonment of the Kimmeridge layer in the BRX4.

The statement added that Brockham had more than 400 barrels of oil stored for sale. Minor additions to site equipment were planned in coming weeks to “optimise production”, it also said.