100,000 barrels a day at Cork site

The Barryroe oil field off Co Cork could produce up to 100,000 barrels of oil per day, or a total of 280m barrels of recoverable oil over a 25-year lifespan.

Irish exploration company Providence Resources — which owns an 80% stake in the field — yesterday updated estimates for the asset, which is Ireland’s most significant oil find to date. The figures follow findings that Barryroe probably holds up to 1.8bn barrels in total and is four times bigger than initially thought.

Yesterday, the company said an average recovery rate of 27% of the estimated full oil-in-place figure would be better than expected and would rank Barryroe alongside some of the big finds in the North Sea. Chief executive Tony O’Reilly Jr said oil discoveries off the Irish coast such as Barryroe could benefit Ireland in much the same way as North Sea finds have Britain. Previous estimates suggested that about 16% of oil at Barryroe could be recoverable as part of a cost-effective drilling round.