Europa Oil & Gas (holdin... Share Discussion Threads

[christy41] 07/5/2024 07:26

Thanks Tommy,much appreciated.

[tommy241] 06/5/2024 22:25

In June 29, 2005, the Rossport Five were sentenced to a prison term that would end up lasting 94 days. Escorted from the High Court under a pale Dublin sun, the five men were found to have repeatedly breached an injunction to stop protesting at work being carried out by Shell.

For more than four years the group had fought against the route of a high-pressure pipeline pumping gas from the Corrib field off Co Mayo and through their land in Rossport.
Shell had bought into the Corrib field in 2002. Its plans would be knocked back twice, spark national protests and be contested by Archbishop Desmond Tutu before the first gas was pumped in December 2015.

With much less fanfare, Shell sold its 45 per cent stake in the field to the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) in 2018, booking a near €1 billion loss. Corrib has been operating in the background ever since.
Last month Europa Oil & Gas, a London-listed explorer, announced that it was looking to drill a new prospect off Corrib, restarting the debate around the country’s gas resources. Europa estimates the site could hold significant reserves and is looking to attract investment partners for exploratory drilling.

The move is timely. The existing Corrib field is jointly owned by CPPIB, through its subsidiary Nephin Energy, and Vermilion, a Canadian energy group. The well today provides 25 per cent of Ireland’s gas needs but resources are slowly depleting. By 2030 just 10 per cent of Ireland’s gas will flow from Corrib, eventually falling to zero when the resource runs dry in about 2035.
With the remainder of Ireland’s gas imported from Scotland via the twin Moffat pipelines, the country is facing the real prospect of becoming entirely reliant on the UK for its gas.

The minister for the environment Eamon Ryan spearheaded the ban on new gas licences Despite European Union energy security concerns following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and a growing acceptance that gas will be the transition fuel of choice for the move to a renewable grid, the state seems to be grappling with the idea that it wants a new domestic source of gas.
The first hurdle will be whether Europa actually finds anything. The company’s Inishkea West prospect beside the existing Corrib field has a “one-in-three chance” of success, according to Will Holland, chief executive of Europa Oil & Gas. “We believe we could be producing this out until 2050, although the economic cut-off might be sooner than that.”

Europa’s estimates, based on seismic data, suggest there could be 1.55 trillion cubic feet of gas in Inishkea West. In real terms, Europa said this could supply 75 per cent of Ireland’s gas demand until 2035. To make this happen, the company is pitching for investors to fund the €50 million cost of exploratory drilling, which it hopes could start next summer.
Nephin and Vermilion are obvious candidates for a tie-up given Europa will be looking to link in with Corrib’s existing infrastructure. All going well, the site could be pumping gas before the end of the decade, Holland said.
The market, on the other hand, is less convinced. Industry sources suggest the success rate is likely to be far lower, probably topping out at one in five. “Europa’s prospect still represents frontier exploration with all the challenges associated with that,” one senior gas executive said.
The industry is also sceptical whether it would attract another oil major for a long-term partnership in the wake of Shell’s exit.

Following the government’s ban on new gas licences in 2021, spearheaded by Eamon Ryan, minister for the environment, the prospects for a new indigenous supply are looking increasingly slim. Only companies with existing permissions, including Europa and Predator Oil & Gas, can progress licences, which have been beset by delays when seeking extensions from the government.

The area around Corrib might have a proven track record as a viable gas prospect, but this is no guarantee of future success.
From an energy security standpoint, the implications of Corrib running dry and no alternative emerging are stark.
Across Europe, countries have scrambled to wean themselves off Russian gas and build up their own domestic supplies. Within ten months of the invasion of Ukraine, Germany had connected its first floating gas terminal. Since then it has added two more. Across Europe, 17 floating storage regasification units (FSRU) are being built or in planning, to receive gas shipped from America or the Gulf.

As Ireland transitions towards a renewable-led grid, gas demand will also come down
GETTY IMAGES
Most European countries would crave a domestic gas supply; Ireland is turning its back on exploring for one, according to Don Moore, former managing director of ESB International and fellow at the Irish Academy of Engineering.
“No other country in Europe has adopted this policy,” he added. “The No 1 way of actually securing your gas supplies is to have active gasfields in your own territorial area. And that’s what we had, first of all with Kinsale and then with Corrib.”

Across Ireland, more than 700,000 people rely on gas for their energy or heating. Half of the country’s electricity and a third of its total energy come from gas generation. As an island nation at the end of the European gas network, Ireland’s reliance on the UK pipeline is a particular point of weakness in the supply chain.
In its current state without any contingencies, the government is “taking an extraordinary risk”, Moore said. “You have to prepare for high-impact, low-probability scenarios. If, for any reason, the gas interconnector to Scotland was to be interrupted, we would be absolutely devastated.”

The alternative is to follow other EU countries. Last year the American energy group New Fortress submitted plans to build an onshore liquefied natural gas (LNG) storage facility and powerplant in Shannon. The plans were knocked back by An Bord Pleanala, which said the development would be inappropriate pending the as-yet-unpublished energy security report.
When the report was eventually released last November, nearly a year late, it recommended a state-owned FSRU facility delivered by Gas Networks Ireland.
Paid for by a public levy, the government facility would be used only for emergency generation as opposed to continuous private use, which would drive up emissions. Now that the process is in state hands, though, there are doubts about its delivery.

Aside from having to go through the lengthy design and planning processes which New Fortress had all but completed, the government will also need to get hold of a floating storage unit at a time when all of Europe is racing to do the same.
“A floating LNG is a high-risk strategy,” Aoife Foley, chairwoman in net zero infrastructure at Manchester University, said.
“It will need engineering infrastructure, studies, planning and investment to get up and running. This will all take time. So, the immediate prospects may be a photo op, another MoU [memorandum of understanding]. But filling that energy security risk in the medium term of five to seven years is unlikely.”

More than 700,000 people in Ireland depend on gas for their energy or heating
An emergency-only use of the FSRU would also leave Ireland economically vulnerable, according to Shaun Davison, chief development officer at the Texas-based Pilot LNG.
“If things do go south and there’s a rush out to the global market — say, if something happens to the interconnector or there’s a shortage, be it weather-driven, geopolitical, something disruptive in the market; if Ireland requires the commodity and they are having to buy spot volumes — the prices will be punitive,” he says.

Last year, in the shadow of the continuing European energy crisis, the state moved to secure the future of the UK interconnector, with Ryan signing two memorandums of understanding with Claire Coutinho, the UK energy security secretary.
Foley remains unconvinced. “Ireland needs to have plans to meet its energy security needs in concrete guaranteed terms in the event of any shortfall. The back-up plans are built on understandings,̶1; she said. “We don’t need any more reports.”
Part of the government’s delay in rolling out a solution has undoubtedly been driven by a desire to plot a path through the situation that has the lowest climate impact. The shift away from indigenous gas resources and insistence on retaining state ownership of any new gas asset are a key part of this strategy.
Jerry Mac Evilly, head of policy at Friends of the Earth Ireland, said the threat of “gas lock-in” and stranded assets was central to the need to avoid new fossil fuel infrastructure. “The announcements from the likes of Europa and others simply ignore that there are legally binding [climate] obligations on the state, which mean that we can’t lock ourselves into ongoing fossil fuel use in the long term,” he said.
As Ireland transitions towards a renewable-led grid, which will require back-up gas generation, gas demand will also come down, Mac Evilly said. “Ireland is going to be significantly decreasing its reliance on oil and gas in the 2030s. And that is not only down to renewables, but also down to storage, increased interconnection and a real focus on demand reduction,” he added.
“These types of discussions tend to just flow back to gas as a transition fuel, or that we need gas for when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t show up, which are the same old tropes that the industry was throwing out 10 or 15 years ago,” Mac Evilly said.
“The reality is that gas plants are going to be running substantially less, even though there might be potentially more gas plants developed.”
Questions remain over the source of the gas. A third-party report commissioned by Europa last month said that gas imported from the UK had a carbon intensity 12 times higher than indigenous supply from Corrib.
Paul Griffiths, chief executive of Predator Oil & Gas, said there was an element of wilful ignorance in the current situation. “On the one hand, you don’t want fracked gas and you ban fracking. But on the other hand, you import gas which nobody can be absolutely certain where it comes from,” he said.
The present government has made its stance clear on the future of domestic gas exploration. Across the aisle, however, Sinn Fein has been meeting oil and gas executives throughout the past year, according to industry sources. Behind closed doors, the soundings have been receptive, yet a public drive for new gas infrastructure is a reach.
Europa’s plans may have passed without notice but, 20 years on from the Corrib protests, Ireland’s relationship with natural gas is still fractious.

Last month Europa Oil & Gas, a London-listed explorer, announced that it was looking to drill a new prospect off Corrib, restarting the debate around the country’s gas resources. Europa estimates the site could hold significant reserves and is looking to attract investment partners for exploratory drilling.

The move is timely. The existing Corrib field is jointly owned by CPPIB, through its subsidiary Nephin Energy, and Vermilion, a Canadian energy group. The well today provides 25 per cent of Ireland’s gas needs but resources are slowly depleting. By 2030 just 10 per cent of Ireland’s gas will flow from Corrib, eventually falling to zero when the resource runs dry in about 2035.

[christy41] 06/5/2024 12:32

Tommy,
From Flombo10 on the other board.


Most of it usual stuff , esp Ireland will be at the mercy of British Gas supply very soon.

Holland says we need €50m to start drilling , and hopes to be drilling by next summer. He says 1/3 chance of success

Other industry experts say 1/5 chance .

Nephin and Vermilion are obviously candidates.

Probably the most interesting in the end of the article . Sinn Fein have been meeting oil and gas executives throughout the last year ,according to industry sources . “ behind closed door soundings have been receptive”

[tommy241] 05/5/2024 10:39

Anyone have a subscription?

[hoper1] 04/5/2024 07:29

Sorry, can't anyone tell me what this management does all day

[4sta] 03/5/2024 08:19

I agree.Shame they still deploy an absurd amount of our capital on renumeration though.

[roundtheworld] 03/5/2024 07:19

Interesting RNS out. Sensible decision in my opinion. North Sea oil is just too risky both politically and economically and EOG rightly needs to focus on Irish Gas and EG.

[tommy241] 01/5/2024 20:30

Topped up today, showing as a sell

[currypasty] 01/5/2024 17:33

ujo twitter comment


Union Jack Oil plc
@UnionJackOilplc
·
1h
How long before this government (and the next) realise they have and will wipe out 1000's of jobs and investment in the UK? When we are totally reliant on other countries for our power requirements and we are over a barrel on the costs to the public it will be too late. Wake up
"

[currypasty] 01/5/2024 16:25

a bit weak today. I dont think the Delt situation and the complete lack of interest for a JV or any other finance has hit sector sentiment.

Its unbelievable how the Governments and NGO's are completely killing off our energy security.

[currypasty] 29/4/2024 11:43

#EOG’s tech team took a trip to Cloughton to inspect the core in storage and improve their understanding of the reservoir quality.

PEDL343 (#EOG: 40% WI) was recently extended and we believe we have identified a number of suitable pad locations for an appraisal well.




are we going to drill it then ?

[currypasty] 24/4/2024 17:31

2,680,000 buy this afternoon come on buyers, its a gift price

[tonynorstrom1] 24/4/2024 13:33

RTW - youre probably missing something! What does yahoo finance say about the market cap or how about looking at the outstanding shares and multiply by the share price - simples!

[4sta] 24/4/2024 13:03

If only someone would buy our interest in Serenity. Use the cash to buy back the huge amount of placing shares they issued to enter the agreement initially, and still loads left. Serenity has been a disaster in my opinion and was always too big a risk for a company our size to have even contemplated.

[roundtheworld] 24/4/2024 12:45

It does seem ludicrously cheap. Maybe they should sell their interest in Serenity to I3 for a few million and use the money for something else.

The company maker looks to be Irish gas.

[currypasty] 24/4/2024 12:32

according to advfn, mcap is £9.1 million, which is pathetic based on Wressle alone

Despite all the interviews, PR, publications, and surveys, the investment community is just not interested. Only way forward, like Egdon, would be a trade sale of a project, or sell the whole lot and put us out of our missery..

We have simply never recovered from the huge dilution for the mad gamble on Serenity

[roundtheworld] 24/4/2024 12:29

Am I right in thinking this has a market cap of just under £9m or am I missing something?

[suetballs] 24/4/2024 09:24

Curry and I have being saying for eons that they should sell the company.
But the current Board is not going to promote that.
The "failed" Action group also had a trade sale as a key option too.
Roll on the next AGM!
Suet