Australian-owned Dart Energy said today it had secured future sales of more than £446million after deals with onshore explorer Greenpark Energy and BG Group.
The deal with England-based Greenpark is worth £26.7million and includes 22 onshore licences which Dart said were “substantially complementary” to it’s existing UK acreage. They include a coal bed methane site in Airth, Scotland – the firm’s “flagship European project”.
Dart has also gained exclusivity options for licences and prospective coal-bed methane and shale gas held by Greenpark in Poland and Spain.
A deal with BG Group announced earlier this month saw Dart buy BG’s 50% interest in 14 coal-bed methane licence areas in the UK, taking Dart’s ownership to 100%.
That deal also included a gas sales agreement and a three-month exclusivity option over a 100% interest in two licence areas in Germany, with prospectivity for shale gas.
“In aggregate, at the current market gas prices, this represents potential revenue to Dart of over $700million achievable in the next eight years,” Dart said in a statement.
Executive chairman Nick Davies added: “The agreement to acquire Greenpark’s unconventional gas assets in the UK and Europe is the next significant step in realising Dart’s European aspirations, and allows us to now definitely say that we have created one of Europe’s leading unconventional gas businesses less than a year after first entering the market.”
Earlier this year, Dart agreed a five-year gas sales deal with SSE for production from its 100% owned PEDL 133 coalbed methane asset near Airth.
Dart has spent some £20million on the site, with 14 coal-bed methane exploration and development wells drilled.
The firm said today it was looking to rapidly progress this “flagship European project” to commercial development.
It also said it would be looking to drill its first shale well, the deeper PEDL 133 licence, in which BG is 51% owner and partner, during 2012.
Coal-bed methane is a form of natural gas extraction from coal beds, known as coal seam gas in Australia.
Shale gas is gas locked between seams of impermeable shale rock, requiring different extraction techniques to normal natural gas.
Greenpark is based between Derbyshire and Northumberland. It lists its coal-bed methane licences, mostly across central England and Wales, as containing five billion cubic feet of 2P recoverable reserves.
It claims to have the largest onshore acreage position of any oil and gas company in the UK.