Sound Oil Has Licence Applications Revived

Sound Oil has said the authorities have re-opened its applications for two southern licences off Italy, which were frozen by the post-Macondo near-shore drilling ban that was recently lifted.

Chief executive James Parsons said that the AIM-listed explorer now expected a formal permit award “shortly” on the d150 DR-CS licence, relating to two sites in the Gulf of Taranto.

He said the play, containing the Laura gas find, was “one of the "hidden gems" in the company's portfolio” and that Sound Oil intends to prioritise its appraisal and development.

Drilled by Agip in 1980, the Laura-1 probe found commercial gas in the Pleistocene and Messinian sand intervals, the former of which tested at 11 million standard cubic feet per day but which was never developed.

The hold on d150DR-CS and d148DR-CS in the Gulf of Taranto began in June 2010 when the Italian government banned oil and gas activity within a 5 nautical mile radius of the coast, before exempting existing applications from the ban in August.