Europa has signed a farm-in agreement with a subsidiary of Kosmos Energy to acquire its two Licencing Options LO 11/7 and LO 11/8, in the South Porcupine Basin, offshore Ireland.
As part of the deal, Kosmos will buy an 85% interest and take up the operatorship of both licences alongside incurring 100% of the costs of the first exploration well on each block.
The company will also fully fund the costs of a 3D seismic programme on each licence and pay 85% of costs incurred by Europa to date.
The first exploration wells on LO 11/7 and LO 11/8 have investment caps of $90m and $110m, respectively, while Kosmos will share 85% and of the excess costs of the investment cap with remaining coming from Europa.
Both LO 11/7 and LO 11/8 cover an area of about 1,000km² each in the prospective South Porcupine basin, while the licences have been mapped using existing 2D seismic data and are currently undrilled.
Europa has identified two, previously unknown, prospects in the Lower Cretaceous stratigraphic play – Mullen in LO 11/7 and Kiernan in LO 11/8.