Charles Jillings, CEO of Utilico, energized by strong economic momentum across Latin America. Watch the video here.
Maybe Donalb that is why Lansdowne, who are registered as a company in London, were given a pass in regards to their 20% contribution to the Forty million that was needed to prove that Barryroe had the finance in place to secure the lease agreement. Maybe their role in return for a free carry this time around will be for them to be the ones taking the legal action.
Michael Martin mentioned over the weekend that the Government plans to be energy independent. That is not possible without Barryroe or Corrib
As Manyana has pointed out many times the Rockhopper case gives Barryroe a two pronged approach when it comes to increasing the share price
https://amp.theguardian.com/business/2022/aug/24/oil-firm-rockhopper-wins-210m-payout-after-being-banned-from-drilling
Looks like the cabinet reshuffle will be minimal in its nature. The Greens are predicted to keep their positions and the only movement will come from the Taoiseach Michael Martin moving to foreign affairs to replace Simon Coveney who will take over as Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment from Leo Varadkar who will become Taoiseach. It would be great if Simon Coveney's brief was expanded to been Minister for Energy, Enterprise, Trade and Employment as energy security would dovetail nicely in that existing department.
Eamon Ryan may very well give the lease agreement next week which would be under the radar of the media as there is a lot going on in the Dail in the next six days: a motion in the Minister for Housing and the swapping out of the Taoiseach's office and reshuffle.
Legal action against the Government may be considered in the new year if the lease has not been granted at that stage, which would be a welcome development as that action is as good as starting to drill.
Wind makes up a good percentage of Ireland's energy but it is intermittent so having gas and nuclear as a backup and part of the energy mix is necessary. Oil will still play a big part in transportation and heavy machinery for decades to come. Bill Gates admitted in an interview that there needs to be a technology break through in order for renewables to be able to replace fossil fuels. The cost of renewables is very high and is supported by the taxpayers. The life cycle is around twenty years for wind turbines. Will they be replaced in the future or will nuclear power replace it. I wonder how the salt air affects the life span of offshore wind turbines. It's hard to know but as far as Barryroe is concerned it is a viable field that will run its life span as long as it gets the go ahead. The Taoiseach Michael Martin was on Irish TV last night and he was asked about the possibility of brown outs and black outs due to the drop off in wind. He said that it is possible but that domestic households will be protected and that industry would be the first to lose power. He said that the energy crisis will not only be a concern for just for this winter but also for next winter. This is the third time I have heard him mention this so hopefully he will be taking action to secure energy supplies going forward, which is what Europe is looking to do.
There is a small article about Barryroe Offshore Energy in the Phoenix Annual
Providence Resources has been renamed Barryroe Offshore Energy but it is still the same old story and it is hard to know what to make of the company. The new chairman, Jimmy Menton, and the new CEO, Alan Linn, both exited the company and energy ( or actually ) climate action and the environment minister Eamon Ryan has been make life pretty difficult for the current management, where Alan Curran is in situ as interim CEO since July
What is remarkable is that, along with its 150 million Barrels of estimated recoverable oil, Barryroe also has an estimated 500 billion cubic feet of gas - enough to supply Ireland for the next five years.
Given the country's dependency on Britain for 75% of its gas and the already identified likelihood of shortages this winter, Curran and Co should really be looking to Ryan to facilitate the acceleration of a drilling programme to help get the gas out of the ground. It would take two years to drill and develop the Barryroe field but, as a Green Party Minister, Ryan is not in any hurry to greenlight offshore exploration for fossil fuels.
Investors who believe that a deal will be done to approve the Barryroe project will certainly be happy to pile into Barryroe shares. At the current 4 cent, the company is capitalised at just 43 million euros when it could well be worth up to 5 billion euros.
Larry Goodman's Oil Stike
You are never too old to reinvent yourself. At 85, billionaire beef baron Larry Goodman is starting a new career - as an aspiring oil baron. Earlier this year he brought up 16% of the Sir Tony O' Reilly - founded Providence Resources, after which the company renamed itself Barryroe Offshore Energy. The rebranding may have been an attempt to break the link with four decades of O'Reilly family management , during which the company took hundreds of millions from investors to no pay outs. In 2019 Tony Jnr finally gave up and resigned.
This October environment minister Eamon Ryan's department told the company it didn't believe it had the necessary financing to make its final push to find and extract what it claims is 300m barrels of oil in the Barryroe field from which it took its new name. Then last week came the news that Goodman was stumping up the entire 40m euros needed.
Larry's turn as a latter-day JR Ewing provoked excitement in the business pages, but why is he betting on a sunset industry?
"Oil and gas exploration has no place in Ireland's energy future," declared Ryan last May, which chimes with last year's historic ban on new licence applications.
The snag is that lots of existing licences and licencing options remain unaffected - 26 companies still have options covering nearly 10,000 sq km
Globally, the fossil fuel industry is feeling bullish. The COP27 summit was, in the words of one delegate, an "oil and gas trade show." Buoyed by their war profiteering , fossil fuel firms sent a record 636 lobbyists to the Sharm el-Sheikh shindig. BP chief Bernard Looney, a Kerryman living in London, attended as of Mauritania's national delegation.
Their influence was evident in the summit's final text, which excluded any mention of winding down fossil fuel use.
The "loss and damage" fund to support poorer countries dealing with climate change disasters was rightly celebrated as a major achievement, but without more rapid progress on emissions reductions, loss and damage will happen faster than any amount of funding could possibly cope it.
In Ireland, the escalating climate crises is sure to soon lead to demands for the government to refuse to renew or progress existing licences. If that happens, big oil could threaten to sue Ireland in "investor courts" under the Energy Charter Treaty ( ECT). In August a closed door ECT tribunal ordered Italy to pay 240m Euros to UK Rockhopper after a new environmental law scotched a planned oil project in which it had invested just 33m euros.
On the other side, environmentalists could sue if the government does extent licences, as exploiting new fields would lock in further emissions, which arguably contravenes the 2021 Climate Act. Either way, this or the next government will need to be courageous in facing down the oil baron.
Also this
It is expected that the overall number of authorisations will continue to decline as
authorisations expire or are relinquished – with no new authorisations for new exploration
replacing them. However, as holders of existing authorisations may apply for successor
authorisations, it is possible that the number of lease undertakings and leases could
increase over time as the amount of exploration licences declines.
We should be OK as the new regulations do not apply to us
Holders of existing authorisations are not affected by the changes and may apply to
progress their authorisations through the licensing stages towards a natural conclusion
which may include expiry, relinquishment, production or rejection. Any such applications, or
applications to undertake offshore activities under an authorisation, remain subject to
consent, and will continue to be required to meet environmental, technical and financial
standards as appropriate
Can Larry Goodman, the 85-year-old beef billionaire, avoid becoming another footnote in the continuing saga of Barryroe?
In early 2012, then named Providence Resources, it sparked “black gold” headlines with the discovery of the first commercially viable oil find in Irish waters since offshore drilling began in the early 1970s.
The Barryroe field, in which the company has an 80 per cent stake, some 50km off the coast of Cork, was found at the time to contain high-quality light crude. Its then chief executive, Tony O’Reilly jnr, predicted it would lure international oil giants back to Irish waters.
“It’s just like winning the lottery: you’ve got to buy tickets,” he said that March.
Goodman moves after Barryroe burns through €270m
Investors’ appetites suitably whetted, Providence would raise €79 million a month later in a share sale priced, unusually, at a premium to the going rate for its stock in the open market at the time.
All told, the company – which traces its roots back to 1981, when O’Reilly jnr’s father, Sir Anthony O’Reilly, and a group of investors set up Atlantic Resources – has raised more than €270 million in equity over the past dozen years.
A decade on from the oil find, not a drop has been pumped from Barryroe – the only commercial oil and gas prospect to come from 160 wells drilled in Irish waters over the past 52 years
That included an emergency $70 million fundraise in 2016 – backed by the likes of M&G, Capital Group, Henderson Group and Irish businessman Nick Furlong’s Pageant Holdings – where Providence dangled even brighter baubles before investors in the form of its Druid and Drombeg prospects.
These two fields out in the Atlantic were pitched at the time to potentially hold more than five billion barrels of oil – some 14 times the estimated 350 million barrels of recoverable oil at Barryroe. Subsequent drilling at Druid and Drombeg in 2017 revealed little more than water in the reservoirs.
Since then, all bets have been placed on one horse – underscored by the company’s name change in September to Barryroe Offshore Energy.
[ Larry Goodman may end up with over 75% of Barryroe after funding deal ]
[ Frustrated Irish exploration investors could tap €190m Italian precedent ]
[ Hydrocarbons may eventually kill us but the economy could die first ]
But a decade on from the oil find, not a drop has been pumped from Barryroe – the only commercial oil and gas prospect to come from 160 wells drilled in Irish waters over the past 52 years. (There have been four gas discoveries in that time – Kinsale, Ballycotton and Seven Heads off the coast of Cork, and the Corrib field off Mayo.)
The intervening 10 years have seen three planned partnership deals to develop the project fall through, the company succumb to a series of leadership changes after O’Reilly jnr quit three years ago, the Government move last year to ban new applications for exploration licences in response to climate change concerns and, more recently, a reluctance by Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications Eamon Ryan to grant a key permit to progress work on the existing Barryroe licence.
A year and a half after Barryroe applied for the permit – or lease undertaking – to allow it to drill an appraisal well, Ryan’s department finally got back at the end of October to say the company had not proven it had the financial ability to do the work. Barryroe was down to €2.2 million of cash as of June.
The ball was thrown back to Ryan this week, with Goodman’s Vevan Unlimited vehicle – which had built up a stake of more than 16 per cent in Barryroe in the 15 months to June – stepping forward with a €40 million lifeline.
The backstop, which would cover all the estimated costs around drilling the appraisal well, is not cheap. Funds drawn down will carry a 10 per cent interest rate and will be convertible into shares in Barryroe when the debt matures at the end of 2024.
If the entire facility is used up, Goodman stands to end up owning more than 75 per cent of Barryroe, according to Irish Times calculations. That’s even before warrants entitling the billionaire to buy more shares come into play.
While the energy crisis resulting from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will hopefully speed up the shift to renewables, it has also driven home how reliant we will remain on fossil fuels for a long time
There is a view, however, that some of the investors who have stuck with Barryroe over the years may come up with fresh funds that would limit the reliance on Vevan. The company had a market value of €36.7 million as of the close of trading on Friday.
While the focus to date has been on Barryroe’s oil, its gas reserves may prove more important.
It shouldn’t need to be said that the days when hydrocarbons are no longer keeping the global economy going can’t come quickly enough for anyone interested in the future of the planet. Depressingly, however, even though more than $3 trillion (€2.9 trillion) has been invested globally in renewable energy over the past decade (according to Bloomberg), such has been the ongoing rise in demand for energy in that period that fossil fuel use has remained “stubbornly high, at around 80 per cent” of the global energy mix, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its latest energy outlook report, published last month.
Based on the actions that governments around the world are taking to reduce carbon emissions, fossil fuel reliance will only dip below 75 per cent by the end of this decade and remain above 60 per cent in 2050 – when most of the developed world is targeting net-zero emissions. Much more clearly needs to be done.
While the energy crisis resulting from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will hopefully speed up the shift to renewables, it has also driven home how reliant we will remain on fossil fuels for a long time. As the fourth most energy-insecure country in Europe (according to the Economic and Social Research Institute), Ireland, currently importing all its oil and 70 per cent of its gas needs, should be looking at its own resources during the transition period.
A spokeswoman for the department declined to say whether the fresh Goodman cash will get the permit over the line. Ryan knows the tycoon has the cash to fund a legal challenge. Who knows, the Green Party leader might relish a court showdown with a billionaire over an oilfield.
It would be a cynical and short-sighted move.
Moneypoint to convert to using oil instead of coal.
https://www.businesspost.ie/news/moneypoint-to-convert-from-coal-to-oil-under-climate-plan/
Don't go radar, you are great crack.
So true Swizz. Barryroe has met the criteria that the DCC asked for so the lease should be give next week and going forward all existing oil and gas licenses are allowed to proceed under the current program for government. If the cabinet reshuffle also reshuffles the makeup of departments and Eamon Ryan loses control over energy security that will be good news for Barryroe. After waiting many years the next few weeks could every well decide the future of Barryroe.
Worth remembering that Larry Goodman is a Global business man. He has met and has access to meet any business leaders he needs to meet. When the Government go ahead is given for Barryroe he can pick up the phone to the CEO's of BP and Shell and chat to them
Here's an article we would all like to rea.
https://thecurrency.news/articles/102901/larry-goodmans-e40m-barryroe-commitment-sets-him-on-a-collision-course-with-minister-eamon-ryan/