Europa Oil & Gas splits East Midlands licence acquisition with JV partner

The company bought the PEDL299 licence from Shale Petroleum for a nominal consideration of £1 in August and reassigned the company’s 16.665% interest.

The stake was split between Europa with 8.335% and Upland Resources, the company’s joint venture partner, with 8.33%, which is subject to regulatory approval.

Following the reassignment, in total INEOS, who operates PEDL299, has a 50% interest in the conventional prospectivity of the license, followed by Europa with 25% and Upland with 25%.

INEOS will retain 100% of the unconventional prospective interest in PEDL299, which contains the Hardcourt oil field discovered in 1919, which produced 26,000 barrels of oil from a Carboniferous limestone reservoir.

Chief executive Hugh Mackay said the reassignment of the interest in PEDL299 should be put in context with the ongoing management of the company’s portfolio of licences.

The recent sale of a 3.34% interest in the Wressle discovery was a partial monetisation of its asset base, which helped manage the risks and funding requirements associated with oil and gas exploration and development.

He added: “Once formal approval of the licence award and the reassignment has been received, PEDL299 will have a strong set of partners, each holding a material interest in the licence. This will provide an excellent foundation from which to develop the Hardstoft oil field.

A competent person's report was carried out on Hardstoft by Upland and it identified gross 2C contingent resources of 3.1m barrel of equivalent and gross 3C contingent resources of 18.5m barrels of equivalent in the licence.

Production testing methods for carbonate reservoirs have evolved since 1919 and the company said this could allow commercial oil flow rates to be achieved at Hardstoft.