Cluff on the lookout for North Sea partners

Cluff Natural Resources Plc, a natural resources investing company, is planning to focus on its Southern North Sea assets in 2016 and is looking for partners to provide funding for drilling of one or more wells. 

Cluff Natural Resources says it is already in the process of starting the next phase of technical evaluation with a view to ultimately identifying drill targets. Marketing has started and attracting and securing one or more industry partners to fund forward work programmes, including the drilling of one or more wells, will become a key focus in 2016, said the company.

Cluff was awarded 5 promote licences over 11 blocks on the UK Continental Shelf in the UK’s 28th Offshore Licensing Round in December 2014.

In early 2015, the company entered into a memorandum of understanding with Halliburton, one of the world’s largest providers of products and services to the energy industry, to collaborate and accelerate the development of those assets.

According to Cluff, this has culminated in the publication of a Competent Persons Report and estimate of prospective resources which was announced in December 2015 and which demonstrated significant gas potential.

Cluff says it will continue to focus on further maturing its technical understanding of its North Sea assets and position the business for the longer term.

Commenting, Cluff Natural Resources’s Chairman and Chief Executive, Algy Cluff, said: “2015 was a challenging year for the natural resources sector as a whole, however we were extremely pleased to be able to announce the completion of an independent assessment of the prospectivity of our portfolio of Southern North Sea licences which confirmed the excellent potential associated with previously acknowledged discoveries as well the significant upside that exists.

“We continue to work to develop our understanding of the potential of the Carboniferous and the Zechstein Carbonate plays we have identified while working on a detailed appraisal programme for the Lytham discovery to gather the missing data required to de-risk this potential future development.”

“With no debt or major work commitments, CLNR is in a comparatively strong position to take advantage of opportunities which may arise given the challenging oil price environment. Our objective now is to complete the process of attracting the partners required to fully appraise the production potential of these exciting assets.”