Donegal Geologist's View

Geologist view on Oil Exploration in Ireland

As a Geologist working for a major international Oil company (currenty exploring off the Irish west coast) I believe that the 1992 ruling on exploration licenses is enabling Ireland to place itself as a net exporter of hydrocarbons.One must realise that exploring for oil is highly risky , 10% of drilled wells are successful and each exploration well can cost in the order of 30-50million euros also essential seismic data acquistion does not come cheap.

For Irish offshore oil exploration to compete on a global level (which it must) with the likes of 'cheap' exploration countries like the Middle East, the Far East, China and Africa, Ireland needs good tax incentives to encourage oil companies to spend a huge amount of time, money and effort in searching for what is an elusive, deminishing natural resource. This legislation was put in place in 1992 and has in my opinion done reasonably well in keeping the multinationals and smaller startup oil comapnies exploring for oil offshore Ireland.

The legsilation that does need to change is the production agreements (that is when a commercially viable field is discovered). The tax regime should be either more punititve or an Irish National oil company needs be set up as in Norway (Statoil). This would be my prefered choice, it helps in job creation , knowledge transfer (from the multinationals to Ireland), and offices could be set up in the poorer counties on the west coast thereby benefiting not only Donegal but also the whole of Ireland.

Yours

Anon