Providence farm-in deal for Barryroe not to be completed until New Year

A Providence Resources farm-in deal will not be completed until the New Year, despite rampant speculation by the market that an agreement would be reached before the end of this year.

The CEO of Providence Resources Tony O’Reilly Jr said the deal, which, will see a major partner come in and develop the Barryroe oil find into a functioning oil well, is on track.

“We are kind of on track of where we want to be in terms of a timing point of view . . . but you know it’ll be done when the deal gets done and we want to do the right deal for our shareholders,” he said.

Mr O’Reilly said that they have whittled the number of bids down to a small number spread across north America, Asia and Europe.

“There has been good interest, there have been north American companies, European and Asian in the process.

“It is a smaller group now. We are into the nuts and bolts of commercial negotiations.

“Very much looking at the specifics of the deal, these things take time.

“It is a very big deal. When we are talking to specific companies its even a big project for these companies, and these are huge companies, but it is still a big thing,” he said.

Mr O’Reilly is confident that some of the product that is recovered from Barryroe will be refined in the Whitegate oil refinery. He said that it would be madness not to use a refinery that is only 50km away.

“We’re 50km away from a refinery. Why would you go anywhere else.

“The issue is what are we going to do about 100,000 barrels a day. Whitegate does 70,000 so they couldn’t take all your crude but they wouldn’t want to because these refineries take crude from around the world to create different blends,” he said.