Europa eyes six drill-ready Irish prospects this year

The company is also confident of landing further development partners for its Irish licences over the next 12 months.

Europa is sitting on around five billion barrels of oil and 2.5 trillion cubic feet of gas across seven licences off the west coast of Ireland. Following the farm-out of one licence to Scottish company Cairn Energy last year, Europa is targeting partners for its other six prospects.

Work programmes have been advanced across all licences.

“An updated prospect inventory for three of our South Porcupine Basin licences will be released in 2018, which will conclude with the relaunch of the farm-out process as we look to secure partners to drill wells,” said chief executive Hugh Mackay.

“Our strategy for all our licences in Ireland is to build a prospect inventory based on 3D seismic, de-risk prospects to the point that they are drill-ready and secure a partner for drilling,” chairman Simon Oddie said.

“Based on the results to date, we are confident the technical work programmes we are currently running, which are focused on delivering six potentially company-making drill-ready prospects by the end of 2018, will result in additional farm-outs being secured,” he said.

Last month, Europa said it will fast-track work at its licence near the Corrib field, saying the project could significantly reduce Ireland’s reliance on gas imports.

The company, yesterday, reported revenues of £800,000 (€916,000) for the six months to the end of January and losses of £500,000.