Europa Oil shares jump 12% on Irish asset hike

Shares in British exploration company Europa Oil and Gas jumped by as much as 12% yesterday on news that it is sitting on nearly 1bn more barrels of oil in Irish waters than was previously projected.

While it has a number of onshore UK assets, Ireland is Europa’s main focus with it owning seven licences off the west coast.

The results of an independent competent persons report — covering previously executed seismic surveying of Europa’s west of Ireland acreage — show that the company now has prospective reserves of 4.7bn barrels of oil equivalent (boe) and 1.5trn cu ft of gas across its seven licences.

That estimate is up from a previous figure of 4bn barrels.

This marks the second time in a month that Europa has upgraded estimates of what it holds off the west coast of Ireland.

At the end of April, Europa’s share price was boosted by it upping the reserve estimate for its frontier exploration licence 2/13, in the Porcupine Basin, from 595m barrels to 1.12bn barrels.

In March, Europa landed Scottish explorer Cairn Energy as a development partner for part of its Irish acreage.

Cairn has bought 70% of one of Europa’s west coast licences in return for funding a near €6m work programme.

Europa is looking to land development partners for each of its assets, with chief executive Hugh Mackay saying that “an active farm-out programme” is underway for Europa’s “industry leading licence position offshore Atlantic Ireland”.

While Europa’s share gains pared back in later trading, yesterday, the stock still finished the day up nearly 4% ahead of its Friday close at 26p.