Europa Oil & Gas PLC (LON:EOG) can now offer potential new partners plenty of ‘running room’ offshore Ireland, where it has a substantial acreage position.
The exploration company today confirmed it has accepted the licence options offered in the Ireland’s second tranche of awards in its licensing round.
It already had a significant foothold offshore Ireland before the licensing, with as much as 3bn barrels potentially seen in undrilled targets across two existing licences.
Europa has been seeking a new partner for the offshore venture following the exit of Kosmos Energy last year and it is hopeful that the new awards strengthen its proposition.
The new licensing round has not only brought in the industry’s big names - like Exxon, BP and CNOOC for example - and thus put the spotlight on Irish exploration, but, significantly for Europa, it has allowed a substantial increase in its portfolio.
“We now have a leading position with seven licences in offshore Ireland and feel that we have a sustainable exploration business with a balanced portfolio of assets in three basins with a variety of risk ranging from exploration in a proven commercial play to frontier exploration and all points in between,” said Hugh Mackay, Europa chief executive.
He added: “Potential joint venture partners often cite the need for ‘running room’ in a basin, i.e. they want more than one licence, Europa is now in a position to be a one stop shop for that running room.”
Mackay highlights that any of the company’s seven licences “could be a company maker” if in due course drilling proves successful.
“Europa is potentially exposed to 4 billion boe [barrels of oil equivalent] and 1.5 TCF [trillion cubic feet] of gross mean un-risked indicative and prospective resources across the seven licences,” Mackay added.
The company provided investors with further insight to its four newly awarded areas.
The 16/19 Licence Option (LO) is located in the South Porcupine basin, immediately to the east of Europa’s wholly owned Frontier Exploration Licence 2/13.
In this area the company sees a Cretaceous fan play with the potential for 300mln to 1bn barrels of oil equivalent resources. The company’s view is informed by detailed 3D seismic data gathered for the neighbouring 2/13 area.
Europa’s second new area, LO 16/20, is located in the Slyne Basin immediately adjacent to the Corrib gas field, which after a long development phase came online in December 2015.
Here, Europa sees the potential for 1 trillion cubic feet of gas in a Triassic play that has been mapped in historic 3D seismic (for context, Corrib hosts 1 Tcf of reserves in Triassic reservoirs).
LO 16/21 is also in the Slyne Basin, about 40 kilometres northeast of Corrib. Here Europa sees the potential for up to 500bn cubic feet of gas in another Triassic play.
Europa’s fourth new award is in the Padraig basin, which is on the eastern margin of the Rockall Trough. This exploration area is some 160 km west of the Connemara and Spanish point oil and gas discoveries. In this area the company sees the potential for 300-600mln barrels of resources.
Together the four licence options span 3,745 square kilometres.
“Over the next few weeks we look forward to finding out which companies have been awarded neighbouring licences and in due course we will provide further technical detail on our new awards,” Mackay said.