PROVIDENCE Resources has announced the start of a study to evaluate the carbon-sequestration and gas-storage potential of the Kish Bank Basin offshore Ireland.
The Ulysses Project is being carried out in a 50/50 joint venture with Star Energy Group, a subsidiary of Petronas, the Malaysian national oil company.
Star Energy is a UK gas-storage company, with developments both onshore and offshore Britain and across western Europe.
Irish company Providence and Star Energy were awarded a three-year licensing option recently over eight blocks at Kish Bank.
The agreed work programme will focus on the oil and gas exploration potential of the basin while the Ulysses Project will specifically assess the potential for underground saline reservoirs in the Kish Bank Basin to be used as sites for CO2 sequestration plus for storage of natural gas.
Providence chief executive Tony O’Reilly said yesterday: “Providence has been evaluating various gas-storage opportunities together with Star Energy since both companies entered into the Irish gas-storage memorandum of understanding, as part of the Singleton transaction which was completed in 2007.
“The Ulysses Project is the first of these opportunities that Providence and Star Energy have agreed to proceed with and is particularly exciting for Providence given its proximity to the city of Dublin, with its large carbon footprint.
“If successful, we hope that the Ulysses Project may contribute to reducing Ireland’s carbon footprint as well as possibly increasing its natural gas storage capacity, both of which have been identified by the Irish government as strategic national energy objectives.”
Roland Wessel, chief executive of Star Energy, said: “We are excited to be working with Providence on Ulysses . . . which has the potential to be the first successful offshore carbon-sequestration project in both Ireland and the United Kingdom.”
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