An oil company wants to truck radioactive liquid about 40 miles to dispose underground at a site near Dorking in Surrey.

Angus Energy is seeking permission to inject the waste from its Lidsey oil site near Bognor Regis in West Sussex into a borehole at Brockham.

A public consultation on changing the Brockham environmental permit began today.

The application centres on produced water that sometimes comes to the surface with oil. It is often very salty and sometimes radioactive.

Companies often seek to inject produced water into old boreholes to avoid expensive water treatment. The process also helps to support the pressure in a hydrocarbon reservoir, improving oil and gas flows.

Earlier this year, the Environment Agency allowed Angus Energy to dispose of produced water at Brockham that had been extracted from the site.

The liquid was permitted to be injected into the Portland reservoir through the Brockham BR-3 well. A limit was set of 150 barrels of produced water in any 24-hour period

But the Environment Agency said injecting produced water from other sites would not be permitted until the Brockham site had a separate permit for handling radioactive substances.

Angus Energy had previously said it would also seek to bring in waste from other sites in the Weald.

In 2021, Surrey County Council said Angus Energy did not have planning permission for importing waste water to Brockham.

Angus Energy announced that oil production resumed at Brockham in May 2022 for the first time since October 2018.

The first formal data, for June 2022, reported production at Brockham at 5.66 barrels of oil per day and a total of 27m3 (22.5 tonnes). The volume of produced water was higher than oil at 53.1m3.

• The public consultation runs until 4 November 2022. Views can be given online, email or by phone on 03708 506 506.