By Daniel Hunter
The significance of an oil discovery in the Gatwick area has not been proven, according to the company that made the discovery.
UK Oil & Gas Investments (UKOG) last week said that up to 100 billion barrels worth of oil had been found Weald area.
The the organisation has now said that it had "not undertaken work...sufficient to comment".
It comes after the Alternative Investment Market (AIM), the stock market that UKOG is listed on, asked the company to "clarify and reinforce the numbers".
At the time of the discovery, UKOG chief executive Stephen Sanderson said: "We believe we can recover between 5% and 15% of the oil in the ground, which by 2030 could mean that we produce 10% to 30% of the UK's oil demand from within the Weald area."
But following the AIM's request for clarification on the estimates, UKOG said: "The company has not undertaken work outside of its licence areas sufficient to comment on the possible OIP [oil in place] in either the approximate 1,100 sq miles or the whole of the Weald Basin."
It also said that "further well testing and assessment of recovery factors will be required to seek to quantify net resources in relation to the... areas and to prove its commerciality".
Global output
Elsewhere, global oil output grew by one million barrels a day in March, according to estimates by the International Energy Agency (IEA).
The rise in March means that 95.2 million barrels were produced every day.
Over supply was largely attributed as the reason for the huge crash in oil prices last summer. Prices dropped from around $115 per barrel to around $40 at its lowest point.
OPEC, which include some of the world's largest oil producing nations, said it recorded its highest monthly increase in output for nearly four years.
