BILLIONS of barrels of oil could be buried beneath under the south of England, according to industry experts.

Exploration firm UK Oil & Gas Investments says it believes up to 100 billion barrels lying beneath the ground, but that only a fraction would ever be recovered.

The findings come comes after the firm drilled a well at Horse Hill near Gatwick Airport last year.

Analysis from that well suggests the south could hold 158 million barrels of oil per square mile - meaning there could be up to 100 billion barrels of oil, but the firm revealed only a fraction of that could be recovered.

Oil has been produced onshore in the south for years, with production sites already in Hampshire, Kent, Sussex and Surrey.

UKOG Chief executive Stephen Sanderson hailed the findings as the “largest onshore” discovery in the last 30 years, it was reported.

In May last year the British Geological Survey estimated that the Weald Basin, which includes Hampshire - holds around 4.4billion barrels of shale oil - but today's findings reveal that there is far more than that.

UKOG believe that by 2030 they could produce up to 30 per cent of the UK's oil demand from within the Weald area which includes Hampshire.

The news is a boost to the energy sector in Britain, where Scotland's North Sea oil industry is battling dwindling oil production.