Enterprise Energy Ireland expects that gas sales from the Corrib will commence at the earliest by July 2003. The company estimates the field to contain about one thousand million cubic feet of gas or about two thirds the size of the Kinsale-Ballycotton fields.
Having recently declared the field commercial, Enterprise Energy Ireland has made an application on behalf of itself and its partners, Statoil and Marathon, for a petroleum lease to develop the field, which I expect to grant shortly. Any development work leading to the extraction of oil and gas can take place only following my approval of a plan of development and an environmental impact statement which the company is required to submit in accordance with the Petroleum and Other Minerals Development Act, 1960 and my Department's licensing terms for offshore oil and gas.