Oil firm Siccar Point Energy has applied to the UK Government for permission to drill the Lyon well west of Shetland.
Earlier this month the Aberdeen firm said it had booked North Atlantic Drilling’s West Hercules rig to drill the well next year.
A notice in the Press and Journal shows the company has now asked the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy for consent to drill.
Siccar Point recently completed the sale of majority interests in two licences, one of which contains the Lyon prospect, to energy giant Ineos.
The deal gave Ineos 66.6% interests in licences P.1854 and P.1935, about 90miles north-west of Shetland.
P.1854 contains the Lyon prospect, thought to hold around 3trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas.
Ineos has stakes in the four fields that make up the Lyon cluster — Lyon, Tobermory, Bunnehaven and Cragganmore.
Siccar Point and Ineos believe the prospect could be large enough to form a new gas-hub development similar to Total’s Laggan-Tormore fields.
Tobermory, Bunnehaven and Cragganmore would all be suitable tie-back candidates into a Lyon gas hub.