‘Sanco Sword’ begins ‘Spanish Point South’ survey

Providence Resources P.l.c., ( the Irish oil and gas exploration and appraisal company has announced that 3D seismic surveying operations have begun on Frontier Exploration Licence (FEL) 1/14 (‘Spanish Point South’) in the northern Porcupine Basin, offshore west of Ireland.

'Sanco Sword' begins 'Spanish Point South' survey

The water depth across the licensed area ranges c. 300-650 metre and the licensed area is located c. 140 kilometres off the west coast of Ireland. Spanish Point South is operated by Capricorn Ireland Limited (wholly owned subsidiary of Cairn Energy PLC, working interest 38%) on behalf of its partners Providence Resources Plc (32%), Chrysaor E&P Ireland Limited (26%) & Sosina Exploration Limited (4%). The partnership also holds the adjacent FEL’s 2/04 and 4/08.

The new 3D seismic survey is planned to cover a c. 750 km2 area and is being acquired using Dolphin Geophysical’s M/V Sanco Sword. The survey has been designed to target the Upper Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous reservoir intervals which successfully tested gas condensate and oil from the Spanish Point (35/8-2) and Burren (35/8-1) discoveries, respectively in the adjacent acreage to the north.

There have been four previous wells drilled in the Spanish Point South area, all of which have encountered hydrocarbon shows. The current best estimate of gross on-block unrisked prospective recoverable resources is 350 MMBOE. This is separate from the quoted recoverable resources for the Spanish Point discovery (located in FEL 2/04 and which is planned to be drilled in 2015) and FEL 4/08.

Speaking today, John O’Sullivan, Technical Director of Providence said: “This new 3D seismic survey over the Spanish Point South area is our third such programme in this part of the basin since 2009. When combined, these new data will allow for a comprehensive re-evaluation of the total hydrocarbon resource potential of this area, where previous wells have successfully tested both oil and gas. We believe that the key risk is reservoir quality, rather than hydrocarbon presence, and so we consider that modern high quality 3D seismic imaging will be a significant tool in reservoir prediction.”

 

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Press Release, August 14, 2014