If you were asked how big Ireland is, before reaching for Wikipedia you would probably respond with some variant on “Do you mean the island or the country?”. But this not the most impactful question. You should ask “Do you mean just land or are you including the maritime areas under Ireland’s control?” Because the land area of 70,273 km2 (26 counties)[1] or 84,421 km2 (32 counties) is dwarfed by the full maritime area of 880,000 Km2 size.[2]
The reason why maritime Ireland is so big, compared to its drier parts, is that, under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, a country’s jurisdiction extends out 200Km. Ireland juts out into the sea away from mainline Europe, so it is a lot bigger than you may realise.
With such a large area, and with the vast amount of oil and gas taken from in the North Sea, it was natural that there were hopes that similar (dangerous) riches could be found off our shores. In 1970 the search began. However, despite many drills and surveys, the geology has proved very different from that of the North Sea and comparatively little has been found so far. The two fields that have been exploited are the Kinsale Head (with smaller fields nearby) and the Corrib gas fields.
The Kinsale Head field was discovered in 1971, started production in 1978 and was exhausted in 2020.
The Corrib Gas field was discovered in 1996 but production only began in 2015 after a bitter battle between Shell and local and environmental groups.[3] While some consider that this was a defeat for the environment, it has set a marker that further exploitation of fossil fuels in Ireland may meet with opposition. It was a Pyrrhic victory for Shell as it is thought to have made a loss of about €1 Bn on the project. It is in decline now running about a third of its maximum level[4] and will run out soon.
In February 2021 the Irish Government decided that no more licences to explore/develop offshore oil and gas would be granted but existing licences were unaffected. The Department of Environment, Climate and Communications (“Dept”) issues quarterly “acreage” reports which list the remaining licences. The most recent shows four lease undertaking[5] and seven exploration licences.[6] This is down from 28 exploration licences as at 31.03.2016.
There are, however, two areas of significant current interest: the Inishkea and Barryroe prospects.
Inishkea is the name given to an exploration licence (number FEL 4/19) which is near the Corrib gas field. The licence is owned by a company called Europa Oil and Gas (“EOG”), which is a small exploration and production company (market cap around £11m). In addition to Inishkea, EOG has a portfolio of assets in the UK (both production and development) and an interest in Equatorial Guinea. It believes that the Inishkea field has the potential to deliver 1554 billion cubic feet of gas[7], (this is the mean estimate of what appears to be a wide probability distribution). EOG claim that this could be delivered at a much lower environmental impact than other fossil fuels. It claims that UK imports of gas (which Ireland is increasingly dependent on, due to the decline of the Corrib field) have twelve times the carbon intensity of what Inishkea might be. It further claims that Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) from the USA would be 145 times the carbon impact.[8]
While one might be cautious about uncritically accepting any company’s claims, it is not unreasonable to believe that gas produced locally might carry lower carbon impact than that from further away, and LNG has a very bad reputation indeed amongst environmental activists, mainly because of its link to fracking. However, it seems that many players in the fossil fuel industry claim that they are green and are helping to make the transition to renewables. In aggregate the fossil fuel industry is harmful to the environment, so not all its constituent parts can be benign. Ultimately the solution to global warming is to keep the carbon in the ground.
EOG continues to claim that it is active in promoting the Inishkea prospect and that developments may be expected in 2024.
The Barryroe prospect has a more vexed history. In 2012 it was announced that test drills had demonstrated a prospect of 1.6 billion barrels of oil[9] in the Barryroe field. The licence for this was owned (through subsidiaries) 80% by Providence Resources (now called Barryroe Offshore Energy (“BOE”)) and 20% by Lansdowne Oil and Gas (“LOG”). Despite this announcement and many subsequent announcements around the development, no progress has been made on the development. In May 2023 the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications announced that, as it had made an adverse financial assessment of BOE, it would not grant the Lease Undertaking licence that would be necessary to develop the field. In response, BOE decided to put itself into liquidation. This process stopped when “Vevan” (a Larry Goodman company) put forward a plan to take over BOE[10]. That duly happened and developments are awaited. Meanwhile LOG raised £160,000 in December 2023 to pursue legal action against the Irish Government under the Energy Charter Treaty[11]. It may be that BOE will also want to take legal action but as it is domiciled in Ireland it cannot use the Energy Charter Treaty route.
The future of these two developments is far from certain but one thing is. Ireland badly needs to step up its production of renewable energy.[12]
Author: Tony Jeffery is a retired actuary, involved in climate activism (a member of the Society's Sustainability & Climate Change Committee), the Worshipful Livery Company of Actuaries and co-founder of the Gosset's t club.
[1] All facts and figures are sourced from Wikipedia unless otherwise stated.
[2] https://www.marine.ie/site-area/news-events/news/map-ireland-bigger-you…
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrib_gas_controversy
[4] https://www.gasnetworks.ie/docs/corporate/gas-regulation/GNI-Winter-Out…
[5] A lease undertaking gives the holder the right to a petroleum lease which in turn allows the holder to produce petroleum.
[6] https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/10d43-acreage-reports-and-concession-…
[7] According to https://www.worlddata.info/europe/ireland/energy-consumption.php in 2021 Ireland consumed 5.49 bn cubic meters of gas, so this would be about eight years’ consumption.
[8] https://www.europaoil.com/operations/ireland/
[9] In energy terms a billion barrels of oil is equivalent to about 0.19 billion cubic feet of gas https://www.qatarenergy.qa/en/pages/conversionfactor.aspx
[10] https://www.irishtimes.com/business/2023/10/02/larry-goodman-commits-up…
[11] The Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) is an international agreement that establishes a multilateral framework for cross-border cooperation in the energy industry, principally the fossil fuel industry. The treaty covers all aspects of commercial energy activities including trade, transit, investments and energy efficiency. According to Wikipedia, it has been criticized for being a significant obstacle to enacting national policies to combat climate change.
[12] https://www.seai.ie/publications/National-Energy-Projections-2023.pdf
The views of this article do not necessarily reflect the views of the Society of Actuaries in Ireland, the Sustainability and Climate Committee, or the author’s employer.