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OIL AND GAS exploration company Providence Resources has announced today that it has surrendered its Foreshore Licence that was granted over an area off the coast of Dublin.
The licence had been awarded over the Kish Bank Basin, near Dalkey, by the Department of Environment, Community and Local Government in September 2012. It permitted the company to carry out a well site survey and drill an exploration well in the area.
In a statement today the company said the decision to surrender the licence was made following discussions with the department when it became clear that there were “certain elements” of the EU, EIA Directive that were not transposed correctly into law in 1999 by the government.
The lack of clarity on this issue meant that the licence, and subsequent exploration activities, could have been subjected to ongoing legal challenges and undue delays.
Last month, Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht Jimmy Deenihan proposed designating some of the waters due to be explored by the company as a special area to conserve reefs and the population of harbour porpoise.
The company said the decision now allows for the government to amend planning and environmental regulations to ensure that regulatory framework complies with the directive. Once this is done, Providence said it will then be in a position to submit a new application to progress operations in the Kish Bank area.
Tony O’Reilly, Chief Executive of Providence said the company itself complied with all environmental planning regulations in applying for and receiving the licence but the failure of the government of over a decade ago to place EU legislation into Irish law left it open to legal difficulties.
“Whilst it is frustrating that this situation has arisen and caused a delay to our planned activities, we feel it is in the best interests for all concerned to surrender the licence and allow the government to make the necessary amendments and we can then make a new application to carry out our planned programme,” he said. “Despite the delay to the planned drilling activities, we remain very excited about the potential of this exploration prospect.”
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Another day, another government skrewup.
The sign makes no clear sense.
Does this not present an opportunity to change the conditions of the license to take 75-80% of all profit for the country?
The pool souls of Dalkey and Killiney have suffered enough with the Great Recession without an ugly oil well hitting our property values further… Sure aren’t we still driving the 09 BMW
FF again !
How about the government employ experts to survey the site and if there is oil to be found let them extract it, but the government retains all ownership of whatever is found. A significant oil find could get us out of the mess we are in.
Yea lets have the government take advantage of research carried out by a private oil company…Do you even think before typing?
What sane oil company would bother looking at Ireland ever again if all the government do is brush them aside whenever there is a decent chance of oil?
Oh and will you be complaining about the millions we would spend if there is no oil? There is only about a 20% chance that the dalkey island project will be viable.
Orion, seriously, do you think before you type..
So if the state were to spend millions on explorations,, great, let them spend it. FFS they giving BILLIONS away to banks for gods sake. Whats millions compared to that? .. And who knows, maybe they will find something that could be used to the benefit of us all.
Bloody hell Phil. Be careful. You’re putting your liberty at risk, by making such outrageous sensible statements like that? Shhhhhh
How about we train young irish people on how to find oil. The purchase the right equipment and do it for our selfs.
What’s wrong with this country we have no self believe.
Nationalise it , train up our people , invest UN the technology and eventually the irish people reap the rewards.
Then we might have a chance at becoming self sustainable.
Vision.
@joseph mcgee
No, it costs millions to setup the remainder o the dalkey island project. It will cost billions over all though. Each and every oil prospect costs billions and billions. Who would lend to Ireland if we squandered billions of euro and came up with no oil? This isnt like Norway where you have a good chance of finding oil, its a low chance in Ireland every time.
And this is nothing to do with the banks? Stop trying to blame the banks and government for everything else.
The only reason we have oil companys looking for oil here at the moment is due to the cost of Oil making it non-Viable until recently.
Oh and 25-49% of the profits profidence will make here go to the Government throught taxation.
Providence*
Are you really a Cllr?
You might want to study oil exploration before you comment.
Also go study proper grammar and spelling please.
Declan — Why do you attack people like this all the time? Why don’t you make an argument yourself for once?
Train Irish people to find the oil? The oil that might not be there, and might not be viable? Train large numbers of highly skilled professionals in extracting resources that Ireland might not have?
Have you heard of Bob Servant (Independent)?
Petr, you are the pot calling the kettle black. If he is indeed a councillor, I am just expecting more from a person who job is to represent a constituency.
A great victory for people power. Well done to all who campaigned against this madness.
Yeah!! Brilliant great result!!!
Susanna — If you had something of great value and were broke, would you sell it at a decent price or give it away for free?
I don’t think this was a victory for anybody. It’s a case of their legal due diligence not being positive and thus creating a level of legal risk which Providence were not comfortable with.
Yes but surely it buys time
Must not be much there so. At least there not getting what was there now.instead of Irish water could we not set up Irish oil?
Petr
You regard something damaging to the National economy as a victory!
It existed or exists as INPC….
This is definitely not a “great victory”. Sounds like they’ve temporarily surrendered the license to allow our corrupt government to move the goalposts to prevent completely justified legal challenges. Once said goalposts have been moved the license will granted, regardless of opposition.
Anyone else getting a case of deja vu. A government that was supposed to legislate for the X case but didn’t. They then create prom notes to bail out bond holders. Now its the license to drill for oil. Can someone tell me exactly what FF did while in power cause it seems to me they did very little except mortgage the house, any chance that in a few years they’ll discover that FG haven’t got all their i’s dotted and t’s crossed also.
This is not a victory for the people, it’s just another demonstration of how corrupt our government is!
I believe that their environmental impact statement was flawed as
there was no mention of scuba divers, despite the licence area covering some of the most popular wrecks in Dublin Bay – dived every week during the summer!
Apologies for the typos.
The exploration and sale of resources should become a priority for government. While I agree this is expensive, countries like Canada, Norway and Oz (Minerals) have stayed more or less out of recession since 2008. It is at least worth looking into.
As I understand it, there’s a LOT more oil under Norwegian waters than here. Hence, oil companies see it as less risk. If oil were so plentiful off our coast, there would be plenty of rigs, especially since our government are ‘apparently’ giving the stuff away. But there aren’t, because the odds are far more slim in comparison.
It costs a LOT of money to go prospecting, especially in deep water.
Well maybe wait until it becomes profitable instead of giving it away for nothing.
David, there might not be any oil out there. That’s the point. It costs millions to prospect for it. The Irish government haven’t given any oil away. None!!! We probably don’t have any viable oil drilling sights. We probably will have to continue to import 100% of our oil.
That oil and gas will come up soon, this is not a victory for shell2sea , this is a failure of the governments, i hope to see people wake up and realise that shell2sea are all nutters and this is a good thing for ireland
Yeah they might be a little weird and dirty but at least they done somethin about the theft of natural resources, to much mainstream media for you me thinks. Less RTE would do ye the would of good
Actually, those who want to give away a valuable resource for free are nutters.
What’s a good thing for Ireland.
It’s good that we have natural resources.
Not overseeing the extraction process and claiming a reasonable share, well that’s not good.
If you think the government were giving away the oil and gas for free i think you need to step away from indymedia propaganda, the tax take from oil and gas export , employees income tax, corporation tax and associated increase in local services would be in the billions , we did not give away anything for free .
Not true. We have had very little in tax from oil companies as they can write off losses for years. Also many staff at shell were from Scotland so would pay tax there unless here for longer than a year….
Petr
Ok let’s take you up on the challenge. Let’s set up a Company funded by the State to search for oil off all our coasts. What do you think it would cost.?
Then let’s set up a fully State funded Company to extract any oil they find and then process it into a pump ready product!
Any idea of cost?
Buddy If we were lucky enough to find oil in the next ten years we might break even but since we have no experience whatever the considered view is that we’d lose a couple of billion!
How easy the Extreme Left think it is to make money and jobs!
And youd all be the exact same ones blaming the government if we had paid for the exploration ourselves
Own Our Oil – OwnOurOil.ie
http://www.ownouroil.ie/index.php
“In March 1958 an Oil was Company registered in Dublin with a view to securing rights for 27,000 square miles of the Irish Republic.The shareholders were 3 Americans trading as ‘Madonna Oil’. They were granted exclusive exploration drilling rights by Seam Lemass for a sum of £500.
They sold a two thirds share in 1961 for $450,000. By 1975 and the discovery of Gas in Kinsale the shareholding had been bought and sold on numerous occasions and was worth £31m.”
“Marathon kept the Kinsale field and eventually discovered gas and sold it back to the Irish State for £700 million.”
“Ireland now has the second lowest tax take in the world out of 142 countries. And that is tax on profit – Ireland’s terms allow all costs going back 25 years to be written off against profits and the prospectors are already claiming to have amassed billions to date in costs. Therefore the state would receive very little revenue from any find under current conditions.”
Our offshore natural resources are already paying for many valuable social programs……in Norway through Statoil.
@StephenChurch. Billions? are you feckin serious? First of all, the international average corporation tax for oil&gas is closer to 30% not the paltry 12.5% charged here. Secondly the cost of exploration will eventually be footed by the Irish tax payer as future profits will not be taxed at all until these companies have recouped their initial outlay. Thirdly “tax avoidance” is now standard practice for multi-nationals. The most recent example being Starbucks in GB who reported turnover in excess of a half a billion British pounds, but through the magic of creative accountancy paid zero corporation tax. The international average for royalties charged to big oil is in the region on 8%, we charge 0%. But yeah, we’ll make billions.
“The cost of exploration will eventually be footed by the irish tax payer ” – no it wont, that would have happened if we nationalised the oil , ofcourse they wont pay tax on an expense , thats how business works here , if i buy a truck I dont pay vat on it , I dont pay tax on the money I used to buy the truck or service it because its an expense to my business, you cant tax a loss.
Will Merkel be ordering tankers to take her oil back to the homeland ?.
@ Jayk
We already know that we have a commercial find in cork. Provident have got very excited about this. The way we are going that find will go to the benefit of a private company , also the gas in the west had been sold to another private company. Wind turbines are planned in there hundreds here in the midlands by a private company who will sell to England for profit.
I believe in state companies or at least semi state doing all this work and investing the profits or pumping it back into the state.
This is what happened back in the 40s 50 s in Ireland with the ESB , BNM and others and it got work going.
We have to become sustainable and stop relying on Europe to look after us.
Vision.
Why don’t all of you go out and buy Providence shares if you think they are gonna make billions finding oil off Ireland. Contact NCB stockbrokers or one of the others. Set up an account and buy some shares. Exploration companies can strike it lucky and give massive returns. Good luck!
Training up young Irish to search for oil is a null point, there are plenty of us working worldwide in the oil and has industry. However the cost is huge.
Surveying an area costs well over a million, an exploration rig can cost up to 1 million per day before you put crew and hire all the specialist tools for drilling(you can’t buy them). To get the rig on location you need 3 anchor handlers. At the height of the boom these were £250000 per day, now they go for £30000 – £150000 per day depending on demand.
Once on location you will need at least one if not two supply vessels (£5000-15000 per day) and a stand by vessel £6000 per day.
You then need all the drilling muds, base oil, cement, bentonite, brine. Maybe some liquid nitrogen or methanol. Of course we can’t forget the drill string and casing either.
The exploration rig will move on after 6 weeks or so. Them you have to get the oil ashore by building a platform and pipeline.
I would love to see a company set up but the costs are higher than you can imagine. However I do think the Irish tax system is a joke for oil companies.
As far as I am aware it’s one if the most rewarding in the world, I think it’s in the top 3.
Nationalise it all. We’ve got to start claiming things as national resources and not just giving them away like Bertie is now doing with all our “public” woodlands.
@ Declan Noonan
I use a phone that has predictive text , what a nasty comment . You know what they say ” those who are nasty they usually have low self esteem.
Sorry to hear that Declan get better soon.
Declan has been crawling on here and insulting people for no reason for ages now. He must have little to do.
How many other licenses were issued like this????
There is no oil around Ireland . When will people learn?
The Government dropped the ball on this but we’re still taking 25% of the profit from Providence and other companies, rising to 40% if the amount of oil drilled reaches a certain level. Not giving it away for free at all, that’s a common misconception. The Government dropped the ball years ago when we had the money to invest in oil-drilling etc and do it for ourselves.
Following the discoveries the Government should look to up the taxes on oil finds in Irish territories.
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