Providence Hopes Success Will Boost Ireland's Gas Prospects

Ireland might shortly find itself sitting over an unexpectedly huge gas boom after a seismic survey over the Dragon gas discovery in the St George's Channel Basin, offshore south east Ireland, has tripled the estimated resources.

Providence Resources, the Irish independent, which operates Standard Exploration Licence 1/07 (100%),  has applied for the UK Block 103/1 as part of a recent UK Government 'out of round' process, a company update said on Friday.

Located 40 km offshore Ireland, the Dragon structure is partly situated in SEL 1/07 which lies in 100 metre water depth and extends across the Ireland/UK median line into UK Block 103/1 where the 103/1-1 discovery well was drilled by Marathon Oil in 1994.

Previously it was thought that up to 100 billion cubic feet of in-place resources were at the discovery which straddles Irish and UK blocks. It was also previously believed that these resources were split 25%/75% between the Irish and UK block.

However, revised mapping using the inverted seismic data indicates that the Dragon gas accumulation may extend further into Irish waters than had been previously been mapped, with a potential resource base of up to c. 300 BSCF and a c. 75:25 resource split in favour of Ireland, Providence said.

Armed with the new discovery, the company is now planning to drill an appraisal well at the Dragon gas discovery next year while an additional 3D seismic programme has already been launched.

“The results are extremely positive, particularly from an Irish perspective, as they suggest a more extensive gas bearing reservoir system extending much further into Irish waters," Providence technical director John O’Sullivan said.

“Given these very encouraging results, additional reprocessing of the Dragon 3D data and well planning have now commenced as a prelude to finalising the well location for appraisal drilling in 2012," he added.