Wessex Exploration’s Promote License 1928, offshore the Hampshire and Isle of Wight coasts, England, is valid for a period of two years, and can be extended into a full traditional license with a total duration of four years with the commitment to drill an exploratory well. Total area of the license is 243.6 sq km (602,000 acres).

The area covered by the license contains the Steelhead and Beluga leads, near the coast and easily accessible to explore with slightly deviated exploratory wells based onshore. In addition, there are several small fault block leads in line with and off the eastern end of the Wytch Farm oil field.

The initial work commitment of the license consists of the purchase and reprocessing of some existing legacy seismic data, and acquisition of 70 km of new 2D seismic data. This seismic work will be started as soon as the relevant environmental studies have been done and appropriate official permissions have been obtained. Technical work done-to-date suggests that a large volume of generated oil, previously trapped in the Wytch Farm structure, could have re-migrated a short distance into the area of the Steelhead and Beluga leads, said Wessex.

Wessex has 35% equity and working interest in the license, and a subsidiary of Norwest Energy is the operator of the license, with 65%.