Dana and Petroceltic land Egyptian licence

By PETER RANSCOMBE
Published on 09/11/2012 09:58

A pair of Scottish oil companies revealed they have won a licence to drill for oil in Egypt near the Gulf of Suez.

Aim-quoted Petroceltic, which recently bought Edinburgh-based Melrose Resources, and Aberdeen-based Dana Petroleum, which is owned by the Korea National Oil Corporation, will look for oil in “two largely-unexplored areas covering 1,824 square kilometres in the southern part of the Sinai peninsula”.

Beach Petroleum has a 25 per cent stake in the licence, with Dana and Petroceltic each taking a 37.5 per cent holdings.

Brian O’Cathain, chief executive at Dublin-based Petroceltic, said: “We are delighted to have been awarded the El Qa’a Plain block and believe the combination of Petroceltic, Dana and Beach will bring an outstanding combination of technical and operational skills to the exploration of this under-explored region.

“We have already identified a number of structures that we believe to be potentially prospective for oil and these will be the focus of our work in the first phase of the licence.”