The chief executive of Cluff Natural Resources today confirmed a “very significant” resource increase for its Southern North Sea prospect.
Algy Cluff said the new figure, which is in the trillions, confirmed his company’s “long held belief that the Southern Gas Basin still has a significant number of large and exciting prospects just waiting to be drilled”.
Xodus Group, an independent oil and gas consultancy firm, carried out a technical evaluation on the gas resources on Cluff’s 100% held licence P2248.
Cluff was originally awarded five “highly prospective licences” covering more than 2,400km2 of the northern Southern North Sea gas basin in the UK’s 28th offshore licencing round.
In 2015, the resources for the area were estimated to be 845 billion cubic feet (BCF).
In June 2016 the company consolidated its position in the Southern North Sea through the unitisation of equity across blocks P2253 and P2258 “after a large structure was identified in the Carboniferous which crossed the boundary of the two blocks”.
This structure extends over 35km2 and further estimates indicated that it had the potential to contain between 239 and 619 BCF of gas in place.
However, today the prospective resources estimated have increased to 4.8 trillion cubic feet (TCF) and 2.5 TCF respectively, “not including a number of additional leads and prospects which have yet to be fully quantified”.
The company leader said: “We are delighted to be able to confirm this very significant increase in the company’s prospective resource base following a thorough independent review.
“This work supplements the announcement on 30 September of the significant prospective resources for Licences P2253 and P2258.
“The company has been working hard to quantify the potential of the licences we were awarded in the 28th Round and this endorsement of the significant exploration potential associated with proven and new play types on our Licence P2248 confirms our long held belief that the Southern Gas Basin still has a significant number of large and exciting prospects just waiting to be drilled.
“We now have a significant inventory of drilling targets across a range of play types and the key focus going forward is to attract the required partners and funding to ensure these prospects are fully appraised.”
Cluff has secured an additional year for the “promote period” on the licence from the Oil and Gas Authority to seek out possible tie-ins.
The company is also aggressively shedding licences with less prospective acreage in a bid to reduce “exposure to escalating licence rental fees payable to the Oil and Gas Authority”.
It also “removes acreage from the portfolio which cannot be easily assessed due to poor data quality or, as in the case of Licence P2259, is effectively sterilised by proposed offshore windfarms which were awarded planning permission post-award of the hydrocarbon licences.”
The resource increase comes a day after Hurricane Energy confirmed similar results from its West of Shetland prospect and the OGA confirmed there was an additional three billion barrels to be recovered from the UKCS.
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