12 firms keen to buy into Barryroe
Providence Resources — which currently holds an 80% stake in Barryroe (with Lansdowne Oil & Gas controlling the remainder) — has long-since stated its aim to find a farm-out partner to buy into the project and carry the development costs. Depending on the offers, the Dublin-based company could lower its stakeholding by as much as half.
Coinciding with its interim results, Providence said yesterday interest levels have been high, “with approximately a dozen companies having reviewed the data”.
It said those interested form a good cross section of leading exploration and production companies, adding that discussions are “ongoing” with the company working to conclude discussions “over the coming months”.
“As planned, we are now actively engaged in a farm-out process, which involves bringing in a suitably qualified partner to advance the project from development to first oil.
“The company is very pleased with the level of international industry interest in Barryroe”, Providence’s CEO, Tony O’Reilly Jnr noted.
With an estimated 1bn-1.6bn barrels of oil in place and 300m barrels of recoverable oil; Barryroe is being tipped to become Ireland’s first commercial oil field within the next four years or so.
Meanwhile, Providence yesterday reported a profit of €1.33m for the first six months of this year. That figure was driven by the sale of its onshore UK assets earlier this year. Excluding that, the company made an underlying pre-tax loss of just over €3.5m; although this was down from a loss before tax of €6.3m for the first half of last year.
Providence said preparatory work is continuing on the remaining four wells of its multi-basin offshore Ireland drilling programme, with the Cairn Energy-operated Spanish Point appraisal well, off the west coast, to be drilled in the second quarter of next year.
