North Sea
We have continued to build and mature our UK North Sea portfolio through the licensing rounds on ground floor terms. This approach exposes Stratic to exploration returns while taking only appraisal risk. The company currently has interests in 15 blocks and part blocks in the UK and Dutch North Sea (9 and 6 respectively).
Stratic has been successful in applying for acreage in each of the United Kingdom offshore licensing rounds since 2003. With the benefit of modern seismic and drilling techniques, stranded oil and gas discoveries drilled in the eighties and nineties make potentially attractive development targets.
Stratic combines its technical and commercial skills to unlock these opportunities. However, pressures of current North Sea costs together with the lack of availability of debt finance to the small cap sector require us to invest carefully; in some cases, such as West Don, we have participated through the entire investment cycle to development and production, in others such as the Breagh gas discovery, we chose to invest up to the appraisal stage, at which point we sold the asset rather than participate in the capital intensive development phase.
As a result of the current level of North Sea costs, we will not be seeking new opportunities in the North Sea beyond our existing licence areas. |
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