Oz Talon Wins North Sea Block
Australian-listed junior Talon Petroleum announced on July 23 the acquisition of a new block in the UK North Sea.
Talon said it had secured rights to Block 14/30b, after placing a successful joint bid with Dutch partner One-Dyas in the UK’s 31st offshore licensing round held last year. The area hosts three identified prospects, known as Thelma, Louise and Buffalo. Thelma and Louise hold 46mn barrels in gross best-estimate oil resources, while Buffalo contains 160bn ft3 of best-estimate gas.
Licence terms require Talon and One-Dyas to reprocess 100 km2 of existing 3D seismic data over an initial two-year period, as well as conduct a geochemistry study.
According to Talon’s managing director Matt Worner, the block is near the company’s other assets.
“The Thelma and Louise prospects within the block are adjacent to the play identified at Talon’s Skymoos prospect in the neighbouring licence P2363, which is currently the subject of an ongoing farmout process by the company,” he said in a statement. “The acquisition of an interest in this new licence is a strategic move by the company to expand and secure Talon’s position in the area which could be leveraged in the event of successful exploration drilling at Skymoos.”
Skymoos in P2363 holds 107mn barrels of oil in best-estimate prospective resources. Talon secured a licence for the site in May, stating at the time it had already received “strong interest from potential partners” in joint exploration.
Talon's other assets include the North Sea's Curlew-A discovery and the Rocket prospect, along with a 50% interest in blocks 12/26a and 12/27a containing the Vantage prospect. One-Dyas is the Netherlands' largest upstream operator, with operations in the North Sea, Gabon and Malaysia.