AHEAD of planned oil drilling in Arreton in 2020, one of the companies involved has increased its share in the licence.

UK Oil and Gas (UKOG) is buying out Solo Oil's 30 per cent shareholding in the onshore Isle of Wight licence.

This will leave UKOG with a total 95 per cent direct interest in the licence.

Drilling is due to begin in early 2020, but will be subject to applications to the Isle of Wight Council.

As previously reported, the oil company is accelerating plans to drill on the Isle of Wight after discovering ‘significantly more’ oil at Arreton than previously thought.

The site at Arreton was drilled in the 1970s by British Gas but at the time it was not economically viable to develop the site, as the oil did not flow to the surface.

However, with new technologies, UKOG think the discovery can now be exploited economically.

The Arreton oil discovery contains three stacked Jurassic oil pools with an aggregate gross P50 oil in place of 127 million barrels.

The £350,000 worth of shares will be bought with £90,450 in cash and 17,989,326 new ordinary shares in UKOG.

Stephen Sanderson, UKOG's chief executive, said: "We are delighted to acquire this further substantial share of the Arreton oil discovery, giving the company a material 14.9 million barrels of net attributable discovered PEDL331 recoverable resources.

"The first Arreton appraisal well, Arreton-3, is now scheduled to be drilled, cored and tested in the first quarter of 2020, with the drilling of the larger look-alike Arreton South exploration prospect planned to follow after completion of Arreton-3 flow testing.

"We look forward to starting the journey towards realising the Isle of Wight licence's considerable conventional oil resource potential."