Europa Oil & Gas (Holdings) plc /
Index: AIM / Epic: EOG / Sector: Oil & Gas
23 September 2015
Europa Oil &
Gas (Holdings) plc (‘Europa’ or ‘the Company’)
Positive Holmwood
Update
Europa Oil & Gas (Holdings) plc, the AIM quoted oil and gas
company with a combination of producing and exploration assets in
Europe, is pleased to confirm that
Surrey County Council’s Planning & Regulatory Committee has
granted permission for the underground drilling corridor of an
exploratory borehole at the Holmwood prospect (‘Holmwood’) in the
PEDL143 licence in the Weald Basin. Europa holds a 40%
interest in PEDL 143, which contains the conventional Holmwood
prospect, alongside Egdon Resources (18.4%), Altwood Petroleum
(1.6%), Warwick Energy (20%) and UK Oil & Gas Investments (20%
subject to completion of farm-in).
The Holmwood prospect is to be drilled as a deviated exploration
well. Europa and its partners now have planning permission for both
the surface site and the underground drilling corridor. Next steps
will include fulfilment of planning conditions and commencement of
detailed drilling planning and environmental permitting. It
is anticipated that drilling will take place in late 2016 or in
2017. Europa and its partner Warwick Energy intend to farm
out some of their combined 60% equity in licence PEDL 143.
The farm out process has already commenced and further updates will
be provided as when it is appropriate to do so.
An application for planning permission to drill the Holmwood
prospect on PEDL143 was submitted in 2008 and was dismissed by
Surrey County Council in 2011. A planning appeal in 2012 was
dismissed by the Planning Inspectorate. Europa successfully
challenged this decision in the High Court in 2013. In 2014
the Court of Appeal upheld the 2013 High Court judgment in the
Company’s favour and a second planning appeal was heard at an eight
day public inquiry in April and June
2015. The Planning Inspectorate issued a decision to allow
the remitted appeal on 7 August 2015
and Surrey County Council allowed planning permission for the
underground drilling corridor on 23
September 2015.
Europa provided the following information in its Geological
Proof of Evidence submitted at the Planning Inquiry in April 2015: “In the event of a successful oil
discovery at Holmwood and based on the most likely resource in
place then the field is projected [by Europa] to have a Present
Value of around £137 million at 60 $/bbl oil price in 2015 rising
to 92 $/bbl by 2018 and inflated at 2% thereafter. After
taking costs and discounting into account the Net Present Value to
the Government based on current taxation rates will be around £86
million with around £51 million accruing to the Licensee group. As
such the Holmwood prospect is considered of material value to both
the Government and the Licensee.”
CEO Hugh Mackay said “Following
Surrey County Council’s favourable decision, we are meeting with
our joint venture partners and reviewing plans to take the Holmwood
prospect forward to drilling. With gross mean un-risked
prospective resources of 5.6 million barrels of oil, as estimated
in a CPR published in June 2012,
Holmwood would be the UK’s fifth largest onshore field were the
mean resources case to be proved by drilling success.
Combined with a one in three chance of success, we therefore regard
Holmwood as one of the best undrilled conventional prospects in
onshore UK. I look forward to providing further updates, as
we look to build on our success at Wressle and in the process
transform our revenue and reserves profile.”
* * ENDS * *
For further information please visit http://www.europaoil.com/
or contact:
Hugh Mackay |
Europa |
+ 44 (0) 20 7224 3770 |
Phil Greenhalgh |
Europa |
+ 44 (0) 20 7224 3770 |
Matt Goode |
finnCap Ltd |
+ 44 (0) 20 7220 0500 |
Simon Hicks |
finnCap Ltd |
+ 44 (0) 20 7220 0500 |
Frank Buhagiar |
St Brides Partners Ltd |
+ 44 (0) 20 7236 1177 |
Lottie Brocklehurst |
St Brides Partners Ltd |
+ 44 (0) 20 7236 1177 |
Notes
Europa Oil & Gas (Holdings) plc has a diversified portfolio
of multi-stage hydrocarbon assets that includes production,
exploration and development interests, in countries that are
politically stable, have transparent licensing processes, and offer
attractive terms. In H1/2015 Europa produced 144 boepd
generating sufficient revenues to cover corporate overheads and
some exploration expenditure. Its highly prospective
exploration projects include the Wressle discovery (recently
drilled and tested at an aggregate of 710 boepd from 4 zones) in
the UK; 100% owned gas exploration prospect (107 bcf) and appraisal
project (CPR 277 bcf) in onshore France a joint venture with Vermillion Energy
also in onshore France; and two
licences in offshore Ireland with
the potential to host gross mean un-risked Prospective Resources
approximately 1.7 billion barrels across both licences.