Italian oil major Eni and its joint venture partners have received an extension for Frontier Exploration Licence (FEL) 3/04 until 2025.
The license lies in 1,500 m water depth in the southern Porcupine Basin and is 170 kilometers off the southwest coast of Ireland. It contains the 2013-drilled Dunquin North carbonate build-up, together with the undrilled Dunquin South exploration prospect.
The license is operated by Eni Ireland (36.913%), on behalf of its partner Repsol Exploracion Irlanda (33.557%), Providence Resources (26.846%), and Sosina Exploration Limited (2.684%).
One of the partners in the license, Providence Resources, said on Monday that the Minister of State for the Department of Communications, Climate Action, and Environment gave his consent to the extension of the second phase of the license to November 14, 2019.
The partners also extended the subsequent third and fourth phases to November 14, 2021 and 2025, respectively, subject to the completion of the agreed work program, which includes the acquisition and processing of a minimum 1,800 km2 of 3D seismic.
In April 2017, the JV partners agreed to underwrite and license new multi-client 3D seismic data being acquired over FEL 3/04. Providence added that the acquisition of this survey was already underway.
Tony O’Reilly , Providence CEO, said: “We are pleased to have received this confirmation from the government on the license extension as we continue to move forward with the evaluation of this license.”