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Barryroe could be Ireland's North Sea

Wednesday, October 10 11:23:18

Irish oil and gas explorer, Providence Resources has again raised its estimate for the amount of oil potential at its Barryroe field, saying today that new studies show up to 280 million barrels are possible.

Currently Ireland imports every drop of oil it uses but Providence chief executive Tony O'Reilly believes the oil discovery in the Irish Sea could become as important to Ireland as the North Sea has been for the UK economy.

He said that new studies of the licence area now reveal that 280m barrels of oil can be potentially pumped out of its Barryroe field off the Cork coast.

Mr O'Reilly said the average recovery rate of 27pc at Barryroe exceeded earlier expectations, which put the amount of oil that can be delivered from the site at 16pc. This compares with an average of 38pc in the North Sea.

Providence has recently undertaken static and dynamic modelling of the main Basal Wealden oil bearing reservoir interval.

This work, carried out by RPS Energy on behalf of the Barryroe partners, incorporated the data from all five Basal Wealden reservoir penetrations, together with maps derived from the recent 3D seismic survey, the company's Technical Director, John O'Sullivan said.

This study has established oil recovery factors which range from 17pc to 43pc.

"Based on a development scenario involving 41 horizontal production and 22 horizontal water-injection wells over a 25 year field life, a recovery factor of 31pc is modeled. These horizontal producer and injector wells are designed to be 600m in length, with the producers incorporating gas lift," he said.

Providence also announced that the Barryroe Concept Development Engineering Study contract has been awarded to Procyon Oil and Gas. This study will evaluate a number of preferred development options which were high-graded during the recently completed development screening study.

"These reservoir and dynamic modelling studies have identified significant productive potential in the Basal Wealden reservoir, which is consistent with the test and other data that we have previously announced. These results will now be factored into our ongoing field pre-development work where we have kicked off a key engineering study to identify and select the optimum development concept. As part of this study, we will obviously consult and solicit feedback from both regulatory and local stakeholders on an ongoing basis," said Mr O'Sullivan.