Farm in25 May 2020 11:05
reland
11) Further development of the Licensing Options offshore Ireland is dependent upon the Company obtaining successor authorisations, which were applied for on 25 May 2018, in the case of Licensing Option 16/26, and 31 October 2019, in the case of Licensing Option 16/30 following a successful application for a 12-month extension to its initial term to 30 November 2019 made on 18 October 2018. The grant of successor authorisations is conditional on the Company demonstrating, either by itself or with the addition of potential farm-in partners, a financial and technical operating capability to perform its exploration work obligations to be negotiated under the terms of any successor authorisations. No work programme has been committed to for the next 12 months and therefore the award of any successor authorisations will be dependent on attracting a farm-in partner to address the financial and technical operating capability and to finalise a work programme with the regulatory authorities which is capable of being financed. In the event this does not occur in a timely manner then the Company may lose its rights to progress to successor authorisations.
The precise details of the changing Government policy with respect to fossil fuel exploration remain to be announced. As a consequence, the investment climate is very uncertain and there is a significant risk that new regulatory constraints will make it impossible to attract farmin partners and finance necessary to commit to a work programme for any successor authorisation. Under these circumstances Ireland would not be progressed by the Company.
In such circumstances it would be impossible to execute the Company’s business development strategy, focussed on gas, for Ireland.
12) The Company’s business development strategy for Ireland is based on the Company having an exclusive right to a successor authorisation in the case of its licensing options offshore Ireland, but the Company’s commercial model has determined that the future funding of the development of these assets is undertaken by a third party or farm-in partner through a merger and consolidation of the assets in combination to create synergies with an acquisition of an interest in the producing Corrib gas field. There is a risk that an agreement with a third party or farm-in partner capable of executing the Company’s business funding strategy for its Irish assets cannot be concluded within the period during which the Company’s applications for successor authorisations, which have been applied for on 25 May 2018, in the case of Licensing Option 16/26, and 31 October 2019, in the case of Licensing Option 16/30 following a successful application for a 12-month extension to its initial term to 30 November 2019 made on 18 October 2018, are being processed by the Irish government. Under this scenario, no successor authorisations would be awarded and the Company’s commercial model for funding would not therefore apply. This risk is heightened
Sign In
Follow the stocks
