Providence talks up Barryroe extraction

The cost of developing the Barryroe oil find 50km off the Cork cost will be hundreds of millions less and produce thousands more barrels of oil a day due to horizontal drilling.

It is estimated that the cost of producing oil commercially off the coast of Cork could be €650 million less than initially thought as Providence may only require four wells to be drilled instead of 30.

The economic threshold for making Barryroe viable had been 1,800 barrels of oil per day, but the latest figures from Providence show the find could produce 12,500 barrels from just a single horizontal well. Providence Resources, which owns an 80% stake in the Barryroe oil find, released an analysis carried out by its reservoir engineers on data acquired by oilfield services company Schlumberger.