This article is from page 3 of the 2009-02-17 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 3 JPG
THERE is enough oil and gas re- serves off the Clare coast to pay off Ireland’s nation debt several times over and lift the country out of the recession – if the Government can renegotiate contracts with multina- tional exploration companies. According to a report by the Petro- leum Affairs Division of the Depart- ment of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources there is the potential for some 10 billion barrels
of oil to be recovered off the Irish coast, with an estimated 206 million barrels of oil located in the Spanish Point field. Even at current low mar- ket prices the total value of oil at this field would come to more than €1 billion. This is just a small fraction of the overall estimated value at the Spanish Point field however, which has a known reserve of one and a quarter trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
At present exploration at the Span- ish Point field, as well as the neigh-
bouring Burren field, is being man- aged by Providence Resources.
New legislation requires explo- ration companies to pay the Irish Government 40 per cent of their oils and gas finds in Irish waters – how- ever, older fields, such as the Spanish Point, Burren and Corrib finds, only require a payment of 25 per cent.
Fine Gael spokesman for Energy and Natural Resources, Simon Cov- eney said last week that the Govern- ment should renegotiate this deal – while local councillor Martin Con-
way (FG) believes that the Govern- ment should seek even better terms or even go into the exploration busi- ness themselves.
“The least that the Government should get from these resources should be 50 per cent. You have to make projects like this viable for pri- vate companies but I think that we need to get a better deal,” said Cllr Conway.
“In terms of employment we need to maximise everything that we have. I was in Doolin over the weekend and
it was shocking the number of build- ers who are unemployed.
“We need to look at every way that we can think of for generating any jobs, whether they be low-skilled jobs or high-skilled jobs. I think that we need to look at ways that the Gov- ernment could go into partnership with oil companies and exploit the resources of the country together.”
The Spanish Point and Burren fields are located in an area known as the Porcupine Basin – located some 200 km directly off the Clare coast.