Europa Oil & Gas (Holdings) plc /
Index: AIM / Epic: EOG / Sector: Oil & Gas
15 August 2016
Europa Oil &
Gas (Holdings) plc (‘Europa’ or ‘the Company’)
Acquisition
of Shale Petroleum (UK) Limited
Europa Oil & Gas (Holdings) plc, the AIM listed oil and gas
exploration, development and production company focused on
Europe, is pleased to announce
that it has completed the acquisition of Shale Petroleum (UK)
Limited for a nominal consideration of £1. As consequence of
this acquisition Europa has increased its equity interest in
PEDL299 and PEDL343 exploration licences awarded in the
14th UK Landward Licensing Round to 33.32% and 45.0%
respectively.
Europa has purchased 100% of the issued share capital of Shale
Petroleum (UK) Limited, a subsidiary of Shale Petroleum Limited
(“SPL”) a privately held Canadian independent oil & gas
explorer headquartered in Calgary. SPL set up the subsidiary
Shale Petroleum (UK) Limited in order to apply for exploration
licences in the 14th UK Landward Licensing Round.
Subject to the approval of the Oil & Gas Authority (“OGA”),
Europa’s interest in INEOS-operated PEDL299, which contains the
Hardstoft oil field, will increase from 16.66% to 33.32%. Europa’s
interest in Third Energy-operated PEDL343, where the objective is
to appraise the Cloughton gas discovery, will increase from 22.5%
to 45%. In light of its increased equity exposure to associated
work programmes in PEDL299 and PEDL343 Europa has elected not to
accept the award of PEDL286 “Goole” in the southern Cleveland Basin (where interest would have
increased from 50% to 100%).
Information about these licences was provided in announcements
made on 17 December 2015 and
14 March 2016. In earlier
announcements the Cleveland Basin
licence was referred to as PEDL348; the OGA has since renumbered
this PEDL343.
Europa CEO Hugh Mackay said “We
are pleased to increase our equity in two 14th round
licences and provide our investors with exposure to two high
quality and low risk projects. The Hardstoft oil field in the East
Midlands Petroleum Province was discovered in 1919 by the UK’s
first ever exploration well. A competent person’s report on
Hardstoft, issued by joint venture partner Upland Resources,
identified gross 2C contingent resources of 3.1 million barrels oil
(mmbo) and gross 3C contingent resources of 18.5 mmbo in PEDL299.
PEDL343 is in the Cleveland basin
and contains the Cloughton gas discovery made in 1986 and tested
gas to surface from Carboniferous sandstone reservoir. We are
excited by the possibility of producing commercial quantities of
gas from this reservoir interval.”
* * 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 |
Susie Geliher |
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 2015 Europa produced 141 boepd.
Its highly prospective exploration projects include the Wressle
development (targeting production start-up in H2 2016 at up to 500
bopd gross) in the UK; 100% owned gas exploration prospect (107
bcf) and appraisal project (CPR 277 bcf) in onshore France, a joint venture with Vermilion Energy
also in onshore France; and seven
licences offshore Ireland with the
potential to host gross mean un-risked prospective and indicative
resources of more than 4 billion barrels oil equivalent and 1.5 tcf
gas across all seven licences.
Qualified Person Review
This release has been reviewed by Hugh
Mackay, Chief Executive of Europa, who is a petroleum
geologist with 30 years' experience in petroleum exploration and a
member of the Petroleum Exploration Society of Great Britain, American Association of
Petroleum Geologists and Fellow of the Geological Society. Mr
Mackay has consented to the inclusion of the technical information
in this release in the form and context in which it appears.