The gas field discovered off County Mayo, the Corrib field, has not yet been declared commercial; further appraisal drilling will be undertaken this year and Enterprise Oil hope to be in a position to decide on commerciality in December this year. Should the results of this appraisal drilling enable the company to establish that the field is commercial then it will be the duty of Enterprise Oil to apply forthwith for a petroleum lease with a view to its development. Within two years of the issue of a petroleum lease the lessee is obliged to submit a plan of development for the field for my approval.
It is required in such plan of development that details be provided on the design, siting construction, establishment, operation, abandonment and removal of facilities, including the export pipeline from the field to the onshore terminal, for the production, processing, storage or shipment of petroleum produced. Any transmission pipeline downstream of the onshore terminal does not form part of the development and is therefore not subject to my approval, being a matter for the Minister for Public Enterprise.
Pending completion of the appraisal programme a decision has not been taken on an upstream pipeline location but in the expectation that the further appraisal will be successful Enterprise Oil have in the meantime a conceptual development plan under consideration which includes analysis of a number of different possible pipeline routes and landfall locations. Initial route surveys have been conducted over several possible routes and more are planned for this year.