CAPITAL: Dublin

MONETARY UNIT: Irish Pound

REFINING CAPACITY: 66,500 b/cd

OIL PRODUCTION: 0

OIL RESERVES: 0

GAS RESERVES: 700 bcf

The Irish nation got a major offshore gas find in 1998.

Enterprise Oil plc`s Corrib North gas field was declared to be commercial, despite its remote location off the west coast.

The Block 18/20 field was the site of a discovery well which was drilled in 1996 but could not be tested due to collapsed casing.

Enterprise ordered 420 sq km of 3D seismic survey in 1997 and drilled an appraisal well 2 km northeast. It flowed 63 MMcfd through a 2-in. choke with flowing wellhead pressure of 1,306 psi.

Wood Mackenzie Consultants said the structure could hold 1.2 tcf of recoverable gas.

It said the Slyne/Erris Trough gas play in which Corrib was found could have total reserves of 5 tcf since several prospects similar to Corrib were nearby.

Wood Mackenzie said the straightforward geology and high flow rates could allow the field to be produced with three to six subsea wells tied back to a wellhead tension leg platform or directly to shore.

Corrib North lies in 350 m of water 70 km from Achill Island.

Wood Mackenzie said a subsea development tied back to an onshore plant could cost about $750 million, including a pipeline link to the Irish gas grid.

Corrib production could total 200 MMcfd, matching Ireland`s domestic production in 1998. The field was expected to come on stream in 2002-2003, around the time that supplies from Ireland`s only other gas fields, Kinsale Head and Ballycotton, began to decline.

Other developments

Ireland`s energy consumption grew 9.8% in 1997, more than any other nation, according to the 1998 BP Statistical Review of World Energy.

In 1998 the Irish government granted a moratorium on an EU directive banning turf-cutting on thousands of hectares of Ireland`s peat bogs.

The decision involved both shallow "blanket" bogs on mountainsides in western Ireland and deeper "raised" bogs in the midlands.

Ireland had most of the remaining raised bogs in Europe, and the EU had designated 23,000 hectares, or 8% of the total, conservation areas to protect the bogs and their flora and fauna.

Ireland opened its seventh wind farm in 1998, bringing the electricity generated by wind power to more than 50 MW. The government said a further 10-15 wind farms would be built by the end of 1999.

Marathon Petroleum Ireland Ltd. was planing to build a 260 MW gas-fired power plant near Dublin to supply electricity to large industrial users by 2000.

The unit, supplied by gas from England, would have been the first private venture since deregulation of the Irish electricity supply market.

Irish National Petroleum Corp. reopened its Whiddy Island oil terminal in Cork, which was closed in 1979 following the explosion of the French tanker Betelgeuse.

The company also built a $256 million single point mooring facility off the port and linked it to the terminal via pipeline.