Making Energy Work for Northern Ireland

We have applied to the Department for the Economy for a Petroleum Licence to carry out inital surveys to determine whether there may be conventional hydrocarbon resources beneath the earth’s surface in parts of Northern Ireland, and to assess the potential for commercial extraction. We want to make sure that Northern Ireland benefits from any resurces which may exist here.

All of our exploratory activity will be carried out in strict accordance with the terms of our Petroleum Licence, subject to all regulatory consents and carried out to industry best practice standards. We will ensure significant environmental protection measures, and will work in adherence to our principles of transparency, openness and ongoing consultation with community and political stakeholders.

Our project would bring in world leading techniques for the investigation. It will not involve High Volume Hydraulic Fracturing, also known as Fracking, and we are not searching for shale gas.

Part 1 of our project will see us collect soil samples for laboratory analysis across the Petroleum Licence area. The results of this research will allow us to significantly reduce the area across which later exploration would take place.

Part 2 involves seismic imaging in areas with higher potential for hydrocarbons. This work will take us up to year 3 of our Petroleum Licence and at that stage we would be in a better position to see how we may proceed to exploratory drilling. If we proceed to this stage we plan to use slimhole drilling, which has a significantly smaller footprint than traditional hydrocarbon exploration drilling.

We look forward to engaging with the community throughout this project.