Irish oil industry big on hype, low on finds

There was no shortage of optimism yesterday at a media briefing hosted by Fastnet Oil & Gas, the nascent explorer with assets in Morocco and, more pertinently, the Celtic Sea off the south coast of Ireland.

But that’s the thing about the Irish offshore industry: there is never any shortage of optimism. There is only ever a shortage of recoverable oil and gas. To outside observers, the Irish exploration industry – over-hyped, over-sold – is the sector that has cried wolf once too often.

Remember Helvick in 1983? Sir Anthony O'Reilly's Atlantic Resources proclaimed to the world that it had hit black gold off the southern coast. The country gorged on the hype – Ireland was to become the Saudi Arabia of Europe. But the oil never flowed at a sufficient rate and eventually the well was capped.

The past couple of years have seen echoes of similar over-exuberance. Providence Resources, the spawn of Atlantic, made a potentially huge find at Barryroe in 2012. Cue a huge round of Helvick-esque over-hyping. Oil, we were led to believe, would be lapping onto Irish shores.

Nothing has happened since. Providence has not yet even signed up a partner to help it drill further. Its Dunquin deepwater play off the west coast – again, massively over-hyped – also turned out to be a dud last year.

Providence’s share price collapsed last year by 65 per cent as investors tired of the guff, although rather curiously, it spiked by 14.5 per cent last Tuesday for no apparent reason – there was no newsflow, no announcement. Perhaps something is in the offing.

Paul Griffiths, Fastnet's managing director and a 35-year veteran of Irish exploration, agreed yesterday that the industry here has a problem, that it constantly oversells itself.

To put things in perspective, there is only a single well scheduled to be drilled off the Irish coast this year – at Spanish Point in Co Clare.

“People buy stocks for the drilling, not the hype,” said Griffiths.

Quite.