Corrib benefits from high price of gas

THE Corrib Partners are benefiting from a relatively high gas-priced product and recorded estimated sales of over €420m in the first full year of production at the Corrib gas field.

Production started on the field at the end of 2015. For the 12 months of last year, the Corrib Partners, including Shell Ireland, recorded estimated revenues of (Canadian) $589m from the production of gas from the field.

This follows a new report by one of the Corrib partners, Canada-based Vermilion showing that it has generated sales of $109m for the 12 months.

Vermilion owns 18.5pc of the field and based on Vermilion’s Corrib sales between January and December of last year, the total sales from the field for the three partners would be $589m (€423.47m).

Vermilion state that its investment in the field will be a significant source of fund flows for Vermilion “stemming from its relatively high priced gas product”.

Vermillion also point to the field being a significant source of fund flows to the firm from the “lack of cash income tax for the foreseeable future” along with the absence of royalties, low operating expense and low-maintenance capital requirements.

The new results for Vermilion show that the amount it recorded in sales from Corrib increased sharply in the final quarter of last year.

According to the Vermilion report “production results continued to benefit from better than expected well deliverability and minimal downtime”.

Vermilion ‘fund flows from operations’ last year totalled $79.24m after taking costs into account.