Is Ireland the New Saudi Arabia?

Economic forecasters and to a lesser extent Dáil Éireann politicians, would have us believe that we are facing into the economic equivalent of the Black Death. However nothing could be further from the truth: as a nation we are, in fact, fabulously rich. Or at least we should be.

According to no less an authority than the Petroleum Affairs Division of the Department of Communications & the Marine and Natural Resources, there are 10 billion barrels of oil lying off the west coast of Ireland, valued at an astonishing €700 billion (€70 per barrel).
The good news doesn’t end there: that ten billion barrels of oil is only the tip of the iceberg. In addition to oil, we have enough natural gas offshore, and inland, to supply most of Western Europe for decades to come.
Energy exports have the potential to transform Ireland into the Saudi Arabia of Europe and make the country rich for decades to come.
You think I’m making it up? A recently published scientific report by the Petroleum Affairs Division titled Atlantic Ireland, an Exciting Petroleum Province stated: “The potential is of at least ten billion barrels of oil. Well data indicate world-class source rocks. Volumeric assessment and expulsion modeling shows volumes of over 130 billion barrels of oil and 50 Trillion cubic feet of gas.”
According to Helen Chandler, a spokesperson for the Department of Communications, Marine & Natural Resources: “A recent regional assessment estimated resources in the Porcupine and Rockall Basins at ten billion barrels of oil. Estimates are based on comparisons with the geology of other regions with proven success.”
Most of the Irish oil and gas deposits have been pinpointed along an underwater ridge known as the Atlantic Margin, which runs parallel to the west coast of Ireland in a more or less straight line, before arcing off towards Scotland and the North Sea onwards to Scandinavia. This natural feature is where all the North Sea oil and gas was found.
To date the Atlantic Ridge hasn’t let anyone down. The Dunquin gas field which is 200 Km off the coast of Kerry contains an astonishing 25 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 4,130 million barrels of oil. Put into context, this alone would meet our gas needs – at present consumption levels – for the next 62 years.
The Dunquin field is currently being ‘developed’ by Exxon Mobil, and several other partners.
“With Dunquin we are planning to drill wells in 2009. It is deep water, and as a rule of thumb, it takes about five years to get a field into production, so we are looking at 2013 to 2015. The gas will be brought ashore in a pipeline and the oil tinkered away,” explained John O’Sullivan, Exploration Manager with Providence Resources, who have a stake in Dunquin.
Further up the coast is the Spanish Point field, located 200 km off the coast of Clare. The field has known reserves of one and a quarter trillion cubic feet of gas and 206 million barrels of oil, and is valued at €30 billion.
John O’Sullivan again: “At Spanish Point we are looking at drilling wells next year and looking at production in that field in 2011. The gas will be brought ashore in a pipeline and the oil tinkered away.”
Further North lies Corrib, County Mayo, which has an estimated value of anywhere between €12 billion to €100 billion.
The field, which has been the scene of much controversy, is being developed by Shell, Marathon and Statoil – the latter company owned by the Norwegian government.
Inland lies the Lough Allen basin, which is valued at €125 billion and contains 9.4 trillion cubic feet of gas and 1.5 billion barrels of oil. This vast field lies beneath Lough Allen and the foreshore area surrounding it, and straddles counties Cavan, Fermanagh, Leitrim, Roscommon and Sligo.
All the local farmers with land beside the lake, who prior to this thought they were sitting on commercially unviable bog, have the potential to become gas millionaires not unlike the fictional TV characters in the Beverly Hillbillies.
Irish territorial waters stretch 200 miles off the coast and comprise of an area ten times the size of Ireland.
They are oil and gas rich, and so therefore is Ireland. The only fly in the ointment is that multinational oil companies are likely to get all the money, unless the exploration contracts are renegotiated by the State.
The present terms negotiated by the government of the day in 1992 (see panel) mean that the people of Ireland would gain very little from our oil and gas wealth. Even Ghana did a better, more lucrative deal.
The multinationals who are harvesting the Corrib gas fields will only have to pay 25% tax on the profit, and most of this can be written-off against exploration and operating costs. A tax on profits is a notoriously unreliable mechanism for collecting revenue.
Although the new rate of tax is 40%, this rate only applies to new exploration licenses and doesn’t cover the existing oil and gas finds.
Currently, Ireland imports 85% of its energy needs and is the last port of call in a very long pipeline that extends all the way from Russia across Western Europe, Britain and finally Ireland.
In the past four years, the price of gas has more than doubled, which has caused energy costs to soar with a knock-on effect for manufacturers, many of whom now maintain that they can no longer afford to do business here.
In light of the fact that our vast fishing resources were given away for next to nothing at a benefit to Europe of €180 billion, there is a powerful case to be made for nationalising our gas and oil fields and subcontracting the drilling to existing operators, who instead of owning the rights would be given a commensurate share of the bounty.
Venezuela and Russia have similar arrangements in place and never experienced any economic ill will internationally. Neither would Ireland.
With the country facing potentially calamitous circumstances, the people shouldn’t be doomed to penury – in the midst of so much wealth – because the Government have been too timid in their dealings with multinationals, and are now fearful of causing upset.
Even the impoverished African nation of Ghana cut a decent deal with the foreign oil companies, with the Government of that country receiving 51% of the profits accrued from the oil and gas bounty.