#Oil - Fastnet Oil & Gas has executed its exclusive option agreement to farm into its Deep Kinsale Prospect beneath the Kinsale Head Gas Field.

The option agreement with Petronas subsidiary Kinsale Energy is confined to geological formations below 4,000 feet subsea. Fastnet will conduct a 3D seismic survey over 500 sq km in the Celtic Sea prospect by the end of the year as well as complete necessary geological and engineering studies.

The agreement also gives Fastnet an exclusive option to test the geologically similar Purbecko-Wealden reservoirs productive in Barryroe, a prospect that has proven a bounty for Providence Resources.

Fastnet chair Cathal Friel said: "We are delighted to have added an exclusive option to farm into and potentially drill the Deep Kinsale Prospect in 2014.

"It represents an attractive addition to our Irish portfolio as we have long held a belief that Deep Kinsale offers the potential to yield up another significant hydrocarbon discovery offshore Ireland. This belief has been further strengthened by the successful appraisal of Barryroe in 2012, which is geologically analogous to Deep Kinsale.

"We greatly look forward to working in close cooperation with our colleagues at Kinsale Energy, as we collectively seek to de-risk the prospect for drilling."

As previously reported on Afloat.ie, Fastnet Oil & Gas announced in December its plans to spend more than €20 million on the Celtic Sea's biggest ever seismic study on blocks off the south coast which were drilled in the 1980s and later abandoned.

New techniques in the oil industry are now allowing previously unviable resources to be extracted, as fellow prospectors Petrel Resources are planning to do off the Kerry coast.