Europa Oil & Gas (Holdings) plc /
Index: AIM / Epic: EOG / Sector: Oil & Gas
28 November 2018
Europa Oil &
Gas (Holdings) plc (‘Europa’ or ‘the Company’)
Update on Wressle,
North Lincolnshire
Europa Oil & Gas (Holdings) plc, the UK and Ireland focused oil and gas exploration,
development and production company, notes today’s update from Egdon
Resources (‘Egdon’) that its application for planning consent for
the development of the Wressle oil field on PEDL 180 in the East
Midlands (‘the Application’) was refused at today’s meeting of the
North Lincolnshire Council Planning Committee (‘the Committee’).
The application had been recommended for approval by North
Lincolnshire County Council’s planning officers.
Egdon, with the full support of its partners, intend to appeal
the decision without delay and will begin preparing the appeal
documentation on receipt of the Committee’s decision notice. Europa
has a 30% working interest in Wressle alongside Egdon (operator,
30%), Union Jack Oil (27.5%), and Humber Oil & Gas Limited
(12.5%) (‘the Joint Venture partners’).
Europa's CEO, Hugh Mackay,
said: “Located in the heart of the East Midlands Petroleum
province, recommended for development by the Council’s own Planning
Officer as well as independent consultants, and with the potential
to generate meaningful production revenues for Europa, we believe
the case for bringing the Wressle discovery into production is
strong. We therefore fully support the operator’s continued
efforts to advance Wressle, starting with the preparation of the
appeal documentation as soon as possible.”
Egdon`s RNS published today is as
follows:
Egdon Resources plc (AIM:EDR) advises that its application for
planning consent for the Wressle Development was refused at today’s
meeting of the North Lincolnshire Council Planning Committee (“the
Committee”). The application had been recommended for approval by
North Lincolnshire County Council’s planning officers.
Mark Abbott, Managing Director of
Egdon Resources plc, said: “The decision of the Committee,
whilst not entirely unexpected, is nonetheless disappointing given
that the application had been recommended for approval by North
Lincolnshire Council’s own professional planning officer who had
the benefit of a positive assessment by specialist independent
technical consultants.
We agree with the conclusion of the
planning officer and the independent consultants and strongly
believe the new application for the development of the Wressle oil
field fully and comprehensively addresses the reasons for the
refusal of the original planning applications and the subsequent
appeals and therefore intend to appeal this decision without
delay. We will begin preparing the appeal documentation on
receipt of the Committee’s decision notice.”
Planning history:
On 11 January 2017, North
Lincolnshire Council refused planning consent for the original
application for the development of the Wressle Oil Field at Lodge
Farm, Wressle, North Lincolnshire.
On 7 February 2017, Egdon
announced that it would both appeal the decision of 11 January 2017 and in parallel submit a new
Planning Application for the Wressle development which would
include even more detailed information to address the specific
concerns outlined by North Lincolnshire Council in their
refusal.
On 11 April 2017, Egdon submitted
an appeal against North Lincolnshire Council’s decision to refuse
planning consent.
On 28 April 2017, Egdon submitted
a new application for the Wressle Development including additional
detailed information to address the specific concerns raised by
North Lincolnshire Council in its 11 January
2017 decision to refuse the original application for the
development of the Wressle Oil Field.
On 19 May 2017, Egdon announced
the issue by the Environment Agency of the variation to the Mining
Waste Permit for the planned Wressle field development and
associated operations.
On 3 July 2017, the new planning
application was also refused. The variation of the existing
planning for the site requesting a twelve month extension was also
refused at the same meeting.
During November 2017, a planning
inquiry was held to consider the two appeals for development
approval and the appeal of the variation of the existing planning
for the site. On 5 January
2018, we announced that the Inspector had rejected the
appeals by Egdon against the two planning refusals by North
Lincolnshire County Council’s Planning Committee. However,
the Planning Inspectorate did uphold Egdon’s appeal against the
decision to refuse the application to retain the existing planning
for the well site, which is was retained until the 28 April 2018.
A new application to extend the current planning consent was
submitted on 13 April 2018 and
refused 1 August 2018 and the company
announced its intention to appeal the decision
On 5 July we announced the submission to North Lincolnshire
Council of a new planning application for the development of the
Wressle oil field.
The information communicated in this announcement contains
inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of the Market
Abuse Regulation (EU) No. 596/2014.
* * ENDS * *
For further information please visit www.europaoil.com or
contact:
Hugh Mackay |
Europa |
+ 44 (0) 20 7224 3770 |
Phil Greenhalgh |
Europa |
+ 44 (0) 20 7224 3770 |
Matt Goode |
finnCap Ltd |
+ 44 (0) 20 7220 0500 |
Simon Hicks |
finnCap Ltd |
+ 44 (0) 20 7220 0500 |
Frank Buhagiar |
St Brides Partners Ltd |
+ 44 (0) 20 7236 1177 |
Susie Geliher |
St Brides Partners Ltd |
+ 44 (0) 20 7236 1177 |
Notes
Europa Oil & Gas (Holdings) plc has a diversified portfolio
of multi-stage hydrocarbon assets that includes production,
exploration and development interests, in countries that are
politically stable, have transparent licensing processes, and offer
attractive terms. In 2018 Europa produced 94 boepd. Its highly
prospective exploration projects include the Wressle development in
the UK (targeting production start-up in 2019 at 500 bopd gross)
and six licences offshore Ireland
with the potential to host gross mean un-risked prospective
resources of 6.2 billion barrels oil equivalent and 2.5 tcf
undiscovered GIIP across all six licences.