Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 16 January 2018
1316. Deputy Eamon Ryan asked the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the estimated cost of extracting oil from Irish marine waters that his Department is using as a basis for the national energy projections. [1813/18]
View answer1329. Deputy Eamon Ryan asked the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the estimated cost of extracting oil from the Kish basin and the Porcupine basin. [1826/18]
View answer1330. Deputy Eamon Ryan asked the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the way in which oil deposits from the Kish basin will be processed, if onshore or offshore; and the details of his discussions with the industry, including a company (details supplied) on this matter. [1827/18]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 1316, 1329 and 1330 together.
There have been no commercial discoveries of oil to date in the Irish offshore.
Any estimation of the cost of extracting oil from a particular location in the Irish offshore would depend on consideration of a wide range of variables including the size of the discovery, the nature of the oil found, water depth, distance from where it could be refined, development technology options and prevailing development & operating costs.
In 2009, the Irish Shelf Petroleum Studies Group of the Petroleum Infrastructure Programme undertook a Cost Effective Field Development Study for Atlantic Basins which modelled a number of oil and gas discovery development scenarios. The scenarios were evaluated at three oil price cases: $50, $75 and $100 per bbl together with three beach gas price cases: $5.50, $8 and $10.50 MMBTU. It should noted that this study was based on the 2007 Fiscal Terms and therefore did not utilise the revised 2014 fiscal terms introduced in the Finance Act 2015.
Only four wells have been drilled in the Kish Bank Basin, none of which discovered commercially recoverable hydrocarbons. All four wells were plugged and abandoned as dry holes.
Providence Resources plc holds Standard Exploration Licence 2/11 located in the Kish Bank Basin. No well has been drilled to date on this Licence and as such it too early to anticipate a discovery that might lead to a commercial development.
