Australia’s Woodside Petroleum has been given the thumbs up to acquire operating interests in a pair of frontier blocks in the Porcupine Basin offshore Ireland.

UK independent Petrel Resources is farming out an 85% stake and operatorship to Woodside of the 11/6 and 11/4 licences, which covering 1,400 sq km in the north and east of the basin. The companies now plan to apply for a frontier exploration licence that will involve a comprehensive work programme, according to Petrel.

The Porcupine Basin contains known working petroleum systems at Jurassic and Cretaceous levels, with oil and gas shows recorded in a large number of the exploration wells drilled in the area.

Petrel confirmed that Ireland’s Minister of State at the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources had granted consent for the farmout to Woodside.

Petrel was awarded the licence options in 2011. The company says that detailed modeling has outlined a 1 billion barrel potential in Quad 35, part of the 11/4 licensing option. Petrel has also mapped closure at its Quad 45 prospects against a major boundary fault and outlined a number of vertically stacked targets.