By Scott Wright
JERSEY Oil & Gas has exited two licences in the Central North Sea, citing the decision as “pragmatic and cost-effective” after evaluating the prospects and talks with the Oil and Gas Authority.
The company announced to the stock market that it has decided not to progress to the next licence phase on Zermatt and Glenn, which would have required committing to firm wells in each of the two licence areas. The licences will now automatically cease on August 29.
The move by Jersey comes after the company announced in March that its plans for its Greater Buchan Area (GBA) development, which it intends to execute in three phases, would not include Zermatt and Glenn. It flagged the “current sub-commercial status” of Glenn while noting the decision to not include Zermatt had come after taking into account the “higher ranked drill-ready portfolio of exploration of opportunities” offered by its Verbier licence. Verbier forms part of Jersey’s £1 billion project to develop a major production hub on the GBA.
Andrew Benitz, chief executive of Jersey, said: “JOG’s management has taken the pragmatic and cost-effective decision not to proceed with firm well commitments for the non-core Glenn and Zermatt licences in the context of efficient and targeted capital allocation. JOG fully respects the OGA’s Asset Stewardship Expectations which govern the delivery of exploration and appraisal work programmes, and we continue to work closely with the OGA as we progress our plans for the company’s core GBA Development project.”
Shares closed up 2.5p, or 2%, at 124p.
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