Page 32: of Offshore Engineer Magazine (Jul/Aug 2014)

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Exploration ofshore Ireland has yet to bear signifcant fruit – could new ideas fnally

Looking for create the oil rush the region has been waiting for?

Geology & Geophysics

Elaine Maslin takes a look.

Ireland’s Jubilee

Exploration to date of the Republic of Ireland. Just 31 wells e are looking for the next There is a lot of acreage to go for. have been drilled in the Porcupine basin, “

Jubilee,” Europa Oil & Offshore Ireland is six times the size of and none in the Rockall basin.

W

Gas CEO Hugh Mackay the North Sea and its Atlantic margin There have been a handful of oil fnds, told the 2nd Annual Ireland Oil & Gas area alone has a 10 billion boe yet-to-fnd but most have been classifed uncommer-

Summit in Dublin, early June. reserves potential, Providence Resources’ cial, according to government defnitions.

Jubilee, a 600MMbbl feld offshore CEO Tony O’Reilly told the Ireland These include Burren (1978), Connemara

Ghana, was a company-maker for Kosmos summit. (1979), and Spanish Point (1981), in the

Energy and Tullow Oil when it was dis- To date, however, there has been Porcupine basin. covered in 2008 and brought onstream by limited exploration success. There are Interest in the Porcupine basin peaked 2011, in a fast track development. numerous sedimentary basins, but only in July last year, when Dunquin North

Kosmos is now in Ireland, and Europa, about 5% of them have been explored was drilled by Exxon Mobil, using one of its partners, sees similar potential and 10% studied, David Horgan, manag- the Eirik Raude semisubmersible. The in the Irish Atlantic Margin’s southern ing director of Petrel Resources, told the US$200 million well—the only southern

Porcupine basin, based on the same play same audience. Porcupine well in 12 years—is reported tapped by Kosmos in West Africa. A total of 158 wells to have found oil shows in a lower

Companies are also comparing features (130 exploration and Cretaceous carbonate reservoir. This fnd in the basin to plays offshore eastern 28 appraisal) have proves source rock exists, potentially

Canada, including the Flemish Pass, been drilled over the from the late Jurassic superhighway, where Statoil and Husky Energy have last 50 years, mostly connecting Newfoundland and Nova made giant fnds, such as the 300- in the 1970s and Scotia with the Atlantic margin, accord- 600MMbbl recoverable Bay du Nord 1980s, and mostly in ing to Mackay. But the fnd was not discovery. the Irish Sea, says commercial.

Kosmos and Europa see signifcant poten- Ciaran Ó hÓbáin, Barryroe is a lower Cretaceous tial—others see it too. Kosmos, Cairn principle offcer fnd in the North Celtic

Energy, and Australia’s Woodside, were of the Petroleum Sea basin new entrants to the basin last year, fol- Affairs Division, lowing the Atlantic margin-opening 2011 department of

Licensing Round. They join a feet of Communica- minnows, including Europa, Providence tion, Energy

Resources, and Petrel Resources, as well and Natural as Statoil, Shell and Petronas, all hunting Resources and for Atlantic margin elephants. Environment

Atwood Oceanic’s drillship, nearing Atwood Achiever completion at Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine

Photo from Atwood Oceanics.

Engineering’s yard in Korea.

July 2014 | OE oedigital.com 34 034_OE0714_G&G1.indd 34 6/20/14 2:41 PM