Serica Energy PLC (AIM, TSX-V: SQZ) said it has been awarded frontier exploration licence FEL1/09 in the Rockall Basin off the west coast of Ireland. Serica is the licence operator and holds a 100 percent working interest.
The licence, comprising of Blocks 5/17, 5/18, 5/22, 5/23, 5/27 and 5/28, lies in the northeastern part of the offshore Rockall Basin and covers a total area of 993 square kilometres.
The Rockall Basin covers more than 100,000 square kilometres in which only three exploration wells have been drilled to date, the basin is therefore regarded as very underexplored.
Of these exploration wells the 12/2-1 Dooish gas-condensate discovery, drilled by Enterprise Oil in 2002, lies approximately nine kilometres to the south of the licence and encountered a 214 metre hydrocarbon column.
A 3D seismic survey has already been acquired and Serica will reprocess this data in order to enhance its understanding of the principal prospect, a structure known as Muckish that covers an area of approximately 30 square kilometres in a water depth of 1,450 metres.
Serica estimates that Muckish has a most likely prospective resource of 675 billion cubic feet of gas equivalent although, given the frontier nature of the area, it is also possible that the structure could contain oil. In order to learn more about its hydrocarbon potential, Serica will acquire several 2D long-offset seismic lines across the Muckish structure, it added.
The licence is classed as a frontier exploration licence and may be held for up to sixteen years subject to work programme and relinquishment requirements. On a commercial discovery a petroleum lease will be granted. In the initial licence phase of four years Serica is committed to carry out geological and geophysical studies and to acquire 400 kilometres of long-offset 2D seismic data.
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