Egdon Resources has discovered a “giant gasfield” in Lincolnshire, it was reported last night.

The Daily Telegraph said the field, centred on the town of Gainsborough, could meet the UK’s entire gas needs for a decade, generate tax revenue and create tens of thousands of jobs.

Egdon’s chief executive, Mark Abbott, was quoted as saying the field was “potentially world class”.

The Gainsborough Trough was identified by the British Geological Survey as a shale gas area since 2013. It stretches between Lincoln in the east and Sheffield in the west and north towards Doncaster.

Egdon’s news could revive the debate about fracking for shale gas in England, currently prevented by a moratorium. The UK government promised in its election manifesto to ban fracking.

The paper quoted a spokesperson for the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, said:

“We intend to ban fracking for good, as per our manifesto commitment. We will update on this in due course.”

According to the Telegraph, Egdon calculated the field holds 480 billion cubic meters of recoverable gas.

This would be about seven times UK current annual consumption and, with falling gas demand, this could last a decade, the paper reported.

If confirmed, this would make the Gainsborough field potentially much larger than Shell’s Jackdaw field in the North Sea, estimated to hold 38 billion cubic meters, the paper added.

Deloitte, which has analysed the economic impact of developing the Gainsborough field, has estimated it could generate income of £112 billion, the Telegraph reported.

Neither Egdon nor Deloitte have made public statements today about the field.

According to the Telegraph, the discovery is to be formally announced at the Lincolnshire Energy Conference on 25 February 2025. DrillOrDrop will be reporting from the conference, organised by Lincolnshire County Council, at the University of Lincoln.

“Quietly investigating”

The Telegraph said Egdon had spent several years “quietly investigating the extent of the field, including test drilling”. The company had drilled to depths of 2k to find the gas, the paper added.

The most recent well drilled in the Gainsborough Trough area was in January 2019 at Misson in north Nottinghamshire. This was a shale gas well, drilled by IGas (now Star Energy), that reported “highly encouraging” results in 2019.

Egdon was a junior partner in the Misson project. The well was decommissioned in February 2024 after being suspended for four years.  

Another Star Energy well, at Tinker Lane, on the edge of the Gainsborough Trough, also explored for shale gas in 2018. It was decommissioned in 2019 after failing to identify gas.

Egdon’s only recent drilling in Lincolnshire has been outside the Gainsborough Trough area and did not target shale gas.

The company drilled an oil well at Wressle near Scunthorpe in 2014 and at Biscathorpe in the Lincolnshire Wolds in 2019.

Egdon’s website reports it has interests in 13 current licences in the Gainsborough Trough area.

Of these, 12 are described as shale gas targets. Egdon is the operator of eight of the licences.

The company is currently challenging a refusal of planning permission for oil production at Biscathorpe. It is also planning a gas production site near the North Yorkshire village of Foxholes and is a partner in another gas scheme at Burniston near Scarborough. Egdon’s planning permission for expansion at Wressle was rescinded following a landmark climate ruling at the Supreme Court in 2024.

Egdon is privately-owned by the Dallas-based Heyco Energy Group, which acquired the company in September 2023. Since the acquisition, Egdon no longer needs to formally update shareholders about its activities.

The Gainsborough reports are just the most recent to predict potentially world class onshore oil and gas fields.

The Horse Hill oil well in Surrey was nicknamed the Gatwick Gusher in 2016 after the site operator described flow rates as exceptional and likened them to the North Sea. The site is currently suspended after planning permission was quashed by the Supreme Court.

The West Newton oil and gas field in East Yorkshire, licensed in 2008, has been described as “an important strategic asset” and “potentially one of the largest hydrocarbon fields discovered onshore UK”. So far it has produced no commercial oil or gas.

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