A warm welcome was given by Andrew Brash, project manager of Midmar Energy to the first five Brockham residents to visit Brockham oil well on Sunday 15th July 2007.

The visit began with a short account of the history of the site and a health and safety briefing. We were supplied with protective clothing and fluorescent jackets before being taken on a guided tour of the installation. BP drilled the original exploration well and discovered a mix of oil and salty water which was not viable for extraction at that time.

The site changed hands and is now under the management of Midmar Energy. There are approximately 9000 oil wells in the UK and this is one of the smaller ones. We were fortunate enough to be shown around the rig whilst it was working. We saw ´rednecks´ and ´roustabouts´ removing the drill pipes from well number one in preparation for using it as a well to pump the unwanted salty water into. The next stage will be to drill a new well for oil extraction