Ireland-based oil and gas company Providence Resources has completed a seabed, shallow geophysical, and environmental baseline survey over the K Well drilling location of the Barryroe field.
The Barryroe field lies in approximately 100-meter water depth in the North Celtic Sea Basin and is located c. 50km off the south coast of Ireland. The field has been described as one of the largest undeveloped oil and gas discoveries offshore Europe, and is estimated to hold 2C resources of independently audited at 346 MMBOE gross.
The final survey was commissioned by Providence’s subsidiary Exola DAC and was completed by the Marine Institute’s Celtic Voyager survey vessel.
James Menton, Executive Chairman, said: "The Directors of Providence Resources are very satisfied with the successful completion of the Barryroe site survey. This survey is part of the Board’s strategic review of Barryroe and the results of the site survey will be interpreted and incorporated into that review.”
Last month, Providence CEO Alan Linn stepped down from his position to devote more time to his other business interests.
He said that following the recent strategic decision by the Providence Board to take the management and financing of the Barryroe project in-house, he felt it was " the opportune time to hand over to new leadership."
While Providence is searching for a new Chief Executive Officer, James Menton has been named Executive Chairman.
Providence Resources in April terminated the farm-out agreement with Norwegian firm SpotOn Energy for the offshore block in Ireland containing the Barryroe oil and gas discovery.
Providence, with its partner Lansdowne, had in November 2020 agreed to farm out a 50% working interest Barryroe field to SpotOn, months after it started the farm-out talks.
SpotOn was to become the operator of the block and was expected, with its consortium of leading oilfield services providers including Schlumberger, Maersk Drilling, Keppel FELS, and Aker Solutions, Aibel, and AGR, to fund 100% of the early development program costs and the full field development.
However, Providence in April terminated the farm-out deal with SpotOn because "key financing conditions were not met," and said it would "lead the project development and funding arrangements."
Providence has previously said that Barryroe would be developed in phases, with an early development scheme for Barryroe planned to include three production wells with horizontal completions into the A-sand reservoir; one water injection well into the A-sand reservoir; subsea production trees with manifold and umbilicals tied back to a leased FPSO.