NORTH Sea-focused Deltic Energy has underlined the exploration potential of the area after concluding that three gas prospects on its acreage could contain the equivalent of around 150 million barrels of oil.
The company said technical work completed recently on the prospects indicated they were “clearly material”. All three appear to be big enough to justify the hefty investment that would be required to bring them into production.
The results have increased Deltic’s confidence in its growth prospects amid challenging times for the industry.
The fall in oil and gas prices triggered by the coronavirus crisis has prompted some firms to slash investment in the North Sea.
READ MORE: 50 years after landmark Forties oil find does North Sea industry have a future?
However, Deltic chief executive Graham Swindells has made clear that he thinks the long term fundamentals of the oil and gas market remain strong.
He reckons Deltic is reaping rewards for its decision to focus attention on areas whose potential may not have been recognised fully by other firms.
The company increased estimates of the total size of the Cupertino, Richmond and Plymouth prospects in the Southern North Sea after applying modern processing techniques to vintage seismic survey data. It said this work helped it to mature the Cupertino prospect and to identify significant previously unrecognised prospectivity in the area.
“Our technical team continues to produce exceptional work, uncovering more previously unrecognised prospectivity in this underexplored part of the basin,” said Mr Swindells.
READ MORE: Oil prices surge after coronavirus vaccine success
Relatively small independents such as Deltic helped boost exploration interest in the North Sea amid the last downturn.
Formerly known as Cluff Natural Resources, Deltic caused a stir last year when it persuaded Shell to buy into some of its acreage and to fund work on the Pensacola and Selene prospects.
Aim market-listed Deltic has spurned takeover approaches from Reabold Resources and Independent Oil and Gas in recent months.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here