Irish-based oil and gas exploration company Providence Resources has acquired Atlantic Petroleum's 4 per cent stake in a licence located 170 km off the south west coast of Ireland.

The deal sees Providence’s equity stake in Frontier Exploration Licence (FEL 3/04), which hosts the Dunquin South prospect. rising to 20 per cent. The licence lies 1,5000 metre water depth in the southern Porcupine Basin.

Dunquin South is estimated to contain around 1.4billion barrels of oil equivalent.

FEL 3/04 was originally awarded to Providence and Sosina in 2004. In 2006, Providence agreed a farm-in with ExxonMobile, whereby they assumed an 80 per cent stake in return for a pre-agreed investment programme. The transaction reduced Providence’s equity stake in the licence to 16 per cent.

Drilling operations on thenearby Dunquin North exploration well in 2013 confirmed the prospect contained at least a c. 44 metre residual oil column. An assessment on Dunquin South meanwhile identified un-risked prospective resources of hydrocarbons in place of 3.475 BBOE (Pmean), with a recoverable estimate of 1.389 BBOE (Pmean).

“We have availed of this opportunity to increase our equity interest in FEL 3/04, which contains the material Dunquin South exploration prospect. The 44/23-1 well results have de-risked many of the elements of the petroleum system and we therefore believe that, on a risked basis, Dunquin South is an attractive exploration prospect,” said Providence chief executive Tony O’Reilly.

“Increasing our equity in FEL 3/04 also reflects our continued corporate commitment and strategic exploration focus on the vast and under-explored deep-water southern Porcupine Basin, which we believe contains all of the elements required to host giant hydrocarbon accumulations,” he added.