Infrastrata tumbles as funding partner drops out

Infrastrata tumbled after it said one of the companies providing funding for its Woodburn Forst-1 well in Northern Ireland will no longer be participating in the project.

The petroleum exploration and gas storage company said Larne Oil & Gas, which exercised an option to acquire an interest in the project in September 2014, has run into funding difficulties and as a result has been forced to back out.

Consequently, the licence interest for the company will revert to the pre-farmout level of 45%.

While the terms of Larne’s exit are being resolved, the partners are currently in discussions with a number of parties to secure around £2.8bn to complete the funding of the well so that it can be drilled this winter.

The company said the licence holders have entered into a data exchange agreement with Islandmagee Storage, which is 65%-owned by InfraStrata.

Under the terms of the agreement, the group has agreed to share the data from the 2D seismic survey it acquired in 2012, which includes data over the wider Islandmagee area, and future data from the proposed Woodburn Forest-1 well in return for access to the data from the Islandmagee-1 well.

At 1016 BST, Infrastrata shares were down 29.4% at 1.50p.