Oil company gets Celtic Sea options

Irish-backed international exploration company Fastnet Oil & Gas has been granted a number of licensing options in the Celtic Sea.

The company — which raised €12.4m on its debut share trading session on Dublin’s ESM market for small and mid-cap companies on Monday — has been awarded options in the Molly Malone Basin and the Mizzen Basin off the south coast.

Fastnet’s main areas of interest, at present, are off the south coast of Ireland and in Africa. The two Irish options it has been awarded cover nine separate blocks in the two basins.

Regarding the Mizzen Basin area, the company plans to purchase and interpret some of the existing 2D seismic data before possibly moving to acquire 3D data.

Fastnet believes the Mizzen licence area could host resources of as much as 1bn barrels of oil equivalent. The Molly Malone Basin could contain 1bn barrels.

The company has until the end of Oct 2013 to submit its evaluation of each prospect in both basins.

Chief executive Steve Staley said: “To have been granted these two licence options so soon in the company’s development is testament to the team we have in place and the future potential of the business.”

Fastnet — which is also listed on London’s AIM exchange — is backed by a number of Irish investors with a background in the exploration sector and has Mr Staley, also a non-executive director of Cove Energy, and Cathal Friel of Dublin-based corporate finance house Raglan Capital, as its figureheads.

Mr Friel is acting as non-executive chairman of Fastnet, and Raglan owns approximately 12% of the firm.

Fastnet also noted yesterday that it had failed in its attempts to gain additional licences for certain blocks in the Fastnet Basin in the Celtic Sea and failed with an application for an onshore shale gas exploration licence in the Dublin Basin.