Offshore staff
DUBLIN, Ireland – Europa Oil & Gas (Europa) has issued a progress report on its license reviews offshore northwest Ireland.
The company has a licensing option (LO) 16/22 in thePadraig basin, which it describes as a remnant Jurassic basin on the eastern margin of the Rockall Trough.
According to Europa, the most relevant analogue for the Padraig is the conjugate margin play offshore Newfoundland in the Flemish Pass basin, where Statoil discovered oil in thedeepwater Bay du Nord field.
It has identified sizeable structures on 2D seismic acquired in 1998 and has mapped leads in both pre-rift and syn-rift hydrocarbon in water depths ranging from 800- 2,000 m (2,624-6,562 ft), with potential gross mean resources of 300-600 MMboe.
In the nearby Slyne basin, Europa operates LOs 16/20 and 16/21 in the Greater Corrib area, close to the producingCorrib gas field and its associated infrastructure.
The field provides around 60% of Ireland’s natural gas consumption. As a result, Europa is targeting a low-risk, infrastructure-led play in this area in a proven basin comprising Triassic sandstone reservoirs in tilted fault block structures, with gas generated from Carboniferous source rocks.
The licenses are part-covered by 3D seismic and more extensively by 2D data. Europa has identified prospects and leads with resources of 1 tcf of gas on LO 16/20 and 0.5 tcf on LO 16/21.
It has obtained the historic 3D seismic and plans to seek a farm-in partner to drill a low-risk exploration well.
Recently Nexen farmed into 80% of Faroe Petroleum’s LO 16/23 in this area.
10/31/2017
