Shale rock underneath some of the wealthiest counties in southern England may contain billions of barrels of oil, a government report said. The Weald basin, covering counties south of London including Surrey and Sussex, may have oil in place of as much as 8.6 billion barrels, according to a report by the British Geological Survey published today. It didn’t say how much could be extracted profitably. The U.K.’s current extractable oil reserves stand at 3.1 billion barrels, according to BP. --Nidaa Bakhsh, Bloomberg, 23 May 2014