Following an exit by French oil major Total, Providence Resources has taken over operatorship of the Frontier Exploration Licence (FEL) 2/19, which contains the Avalon prospect, located offshore Ireland.
FEL 2/19 is located in the southern Porcupine Basin, offshore Ireland and contains the undrilled Paleocene “Avalon” exploration prospect. FEL2/19 lies adjacent to FEL3/04 in which Providence also has an interest.
Following a decision by Total to withdraw from FEL 2/19, Providence confirmed on Thursday that the Minister of State at the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment had approved the assignment of Total’s equity (50%) to Providence and Sosina, as well as the transfer of operatorship to Providence.
Accordingly, the revised equity in FEL 2/19 is now Providence (Operator – 80%) and Sosina Exploration Limited (20%).
It is worth reminding that Total had agreed a farm-out with Providence for the Avalon license back in 2017, taking over a 50% interest and operatorship of the project. Under the terms of this deal, Total would have paid 60% of the drilling costs, subject to a gross well cap of $42 million.
In April 2018, Total applied to convert the licensing option (LO) 16/27, which contains Avalon, into a frontier exploration license (FEL).
Commenting on the announcement, Tony O’Reilly , Chief Executive at Providence, said: “We are obviously sad to see Total withdraw from the Irish sector in general and Avalon specifically as they have been an excellent partner over the past few years.
“Total did some great technical work as operator of FEL 2/19 where the JV recently acquired new 3D seismic data. Providence and Sosina will now continue with the evaluation of this data in conjunction with a new farm-out process to bring in a suitable industry partner to assist in a future drill decision for the Avalon prospect.”
Offshore Energy Today Staff
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