Providence Resources has announced that its Barryroe well has delivered the first commercial flow rate of oil offshore Ireland.
Barryroe is located at a depth of 100 metres in the North Celtic Sea Basin, approximately 50 kilometres offshore southern Ireland. Oil and gas is successfully flowing from the well at double the rate expected.
Providence holds an 80 per cent interest in Barryroe, with Lansdowne Oil & Gas holding the remaining 20 per cent.
In 2011, Providence entered into a MOA with Shell Trading and Marketing to agree an oil off-take agreement for future Barryroe oil production.
Commenting on today’s announcement, Tony O’Reilly, CEO of Providence, said: “We are pleased to report flow rates of 3,514 BOPD which materially exceed our stated pre-drill target of 1,800 BOPD. The well has also confirmed that the basal sands are laterally continuous, highly productive and that the oils are of a very high quality.
“Our comprehensive wire-line logging programme has revealed the seismic signature of the basal sands and can therefore be used to map these intervals directly in the 3D seismic volume for field volumetric determinations and sidetrack well planning. The most recent development planning carried out by RPS Energy cites the use of high angle oil production wells which should provide significant incremental production potential over this simple vertical well.”
O’Reilly concluded: “Given that we only assumed operatorship of Barryroe in late 2010, I would like to pay tribute to all of the team members who have helped to deliver such a successful outcome to this programme (site survey, 3D acquisition/processing, rig procurement, drilling & testing) within such a challenging 15 month timeline.”
In 2011, Providence announced plans to invest with its partners upwards of $500 million in the drilling of a number of exploration and development wells in six different basins offshore Ireland, representing the largest drilling campaign ever carried out offshore Ireland.
