Providence Resources has completed a seismic inversion study over the Dragon gas discovery in the St George's Channel Basin, offshore south east Ireland. The Dragon structure is partly situated in Standard Exploration Licence (SEL) 1/07 which lies in c. 100 metre water depth and is located c. 40 km offshore Ireland. The Dragon structure extends across the Ireland/UK median line into UK block 103/1 where the 103/1-1 discovery well was drilled by Marathon Oil in 1994. Providence operates SEL 1/07 (100%) and has applied for UK block 103/1as part of a recent UK Government "out of round" process.

Previous work on Dragon has suggested in place resources of up to c. 100 BSCF with a c. 25:75 split between Ireland and the UK. A recently completed Dragon study, which was carried out by IKON Geoscience, involved the modeling of historical well and seismic data using the latest available technology. This study has determined that the presence of the Dragon gas bearing reservoir sands may be directly detectable from the 3D seismic data. Revised mapping using these inverted seismic data indicates that the Dragon gas accumulation may extend further into Irish waters than had been previously been mapped, with a potential resource base of up to c. 300 BSCF and a c. 75:25 resource split between Ireland and the UK. Additional reprocessing of the 3D seismic data has now commenced as part of the planning of an appraisal well to be drilled in 2012.

Speaking today, John O'Sullivan, technical director of Providence said: "The recently completed IKON study has significantly increased the resource potential of the tested gas bearing sands in the Dragon discovery. The results are extremely positive, particularly from an Irish perspective, as they suggest an areally more extensive gas bearing reservoir system extending much further into Irish waters. Given these very encouraging results, additional reprocessing of the Dragon 3D data and well planning have now commenced as a prelude to finalizing the well location for appraisal drilling in 2012."

Tags: Providence Resources Plc