Barryroe

Barryroe is an oil and gas field discovered in the Celtic Sea due south of Cork. Close to the exhausted Kinsale Head gas field, it is as close as 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) to the Kinsale Head existing pipeline.^[1][2][3][4] The discovery is at a water depth of 100 metres (330 ft).^[5] Several attempts were made to find a commercial field at the site in the 1970s but although they struck oil, none were commercially viable. It has been rated as the equivalent of a large North Sea oil field.

The well is currently 80% owned by Providence Resources and 20% by Lansdowne Oil & Gas. Providence intend to reduce this holding by inviting a major international firm to exploit this discovery.

Initial flow rates suggest 3,500 barrels per day (560 m³/d) of high quality crude, nearly twice the commercial target set by the firm. This has been revised as high as 20,000 barrels per day (3,200 m³/d), along with 1,350 barrels per day (215 m³/d) oil equivalent of natural gas.

Providence revised up the estimated reserve in place to between 1 and 1.6 billion barrels (160×10^⁶ and 250×10^⁶ m³) in July 2012.^[6] Analysts predict there are at least 160 million barrels of recoverable oil in place.^[7] The estimate recoverable amount of oils was again revised in October 2012 to 280 million barrels.^[8] In April 2013 an independent audit revised the recoverable total up to 311 million barrels (49.4×10^⁶ m³) barrels of oil, and 207 billion cubic feet (5.9 billion cubic metres) of gas.^[9] This gives a total of 346 million barrels (55.0×10^⁶ m³) of oil equivalent.

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