a 30.1% stake in the field. On 17 May 2011, BP announced the sale of its interests in the Wytch Farm, Wareham, Beacon and Kimmeridge fields to Perenco and the sale of the Dimlington gas terminal to Perenco in February 2011. In September 2012, Perenco UK applied to Dorset County Council (DCC) for permission to extend the life of 39 planning permissions at three of the oilfields. DCC's Planning Committee recommended approval of the applications on 6 September 2013, thereby extending to 2037 the operational life of the oilfields, beyond their original end-date of 2016. Geology The field is located in a faulted block of Jurassic and older rocks beneath the Hampshire Basin, close to the steeply sloping monocline in the overlying chalk. The Purbeck Monocline defines the field's southern limit. The field consists of three separate reservoirs known as Bridport, Sherwood and Frome. Bridport, the first discovery, is in the Jurassic Bridport Sands below Poole Harbour, with an oil source in the Lower Lias. The much larger Sherwood (discovered 1978) is below this in the Triassic Sherwood Sandstone at and extends under Poole Bay. The Frome reservoir is in a shelly limestone within the Frome Clay at . The field extends eastwards from Sandbanks and Studland for around under the sea to the south of Bournemouth. Environment Most of the field is protected by various conservation laws, including the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site, Purbeck Heritage Coast and a number of sites of special scientific interest, areas of outstanding natural beauty and nature reserves (including Studland and Brownsea Island), so the gathering centre and most of the well sites are small and well screened by trees. Directional drilling has also contributed to reducing the impact on the local environment, with extended reach drilling from the Goathorn Peninsula attaining distances in excess of 10 km. Production and reserves Production grew from in 1984 and eventually peaked at in 1997; by 2002 this had declined to . In 2002 it was estimated that the field contained reserves of 65.40 million tonnes of oil (479.6 million barrels), 4.73 million tonnes of natural gas liquids and of natural gas that will last until 2020 and 2025 respectively. Oil is also transported to Wytch Farm for processing from two smaller Dorset oilfields, Wareham (discovered in 1964) by pipeline and Kimmeridge Oil Field (discovered in 1959) by road. Oil is piped about from Wytch Farm