Providence Resources offered new licence

Irish oil and gas explorer Providence Resources has been offered a new licensing option by the State covering Spanish Point South off Co Clare.

The new licence award, put forward by the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, will allow Providence and its partners to convert the Spanish Point South licensing option into a frontier exploration licence.

Providence Resources technical director John O’Sullivan said the new licence award provides the partners with further acreage in a region which is drawing increasing industry interest.

“Our planned 3D seismic survey will be the third which the partners have acquired across the area, and which, in tandem with the 2014 Spanish Point well, should put us in the leading position in understanding the hydrocarbon exploration and development potential within the principle prospective Mesozoic intervals ”.

The option covers Spanish Point South, which lies in circa 400 metre water depth in the northern Porcupine Basin and is 160 km off Co Clare.

The work programme for the Spanish Point South area licence consists of a 500km 3D seismic shoot over the area which lies adjacent to the acreage that will be drilled by Providence last summer.