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.

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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.