Ithaca Energy sinks to £400m losses, eyes extra barrels in Marigold and Isabella

Ithaca Energy sinks to £400m losses, eyes extra barrels in Marigold and Isabella

Ithaca Energy sank to losses of £400million in 2020 but the firm is eyeing extra barrels from a pair of North Sea prospects.

The firm has added 35 million barrels of oil equivalent to its contingent resources from the Isabella discovery and the Marigold/ Yeoman licence.

Ithaca bought into the Yeoman licence from Total in February 2020, which includes the southern part of the neighbouring Marigold operated by Anasuria Hibiscus. The latter operator has stated it wants to develop Marigold/Yeomen in tandem.

Meanwhile Isabella is a high-impact exploration well operated by Total, which Ithaca owns 10% of, with work underway to appraise it.

In a presentation this morning, Ithaca said: “Participation in potential Isabella and Marigold / Yeoman developments offer strong organic growth – opportunity to mature 35mmboe in contingent resource.”

It comes after Ithaca's parent firm, Delek Energy of Israel, yesterday upped the valuation of Ithaca to $1.8bn, from $1.2bn in June, mainly due to an increase in reserves and resources.

An independent review of Ithaca's resources last week saw a 51% increase in contingent resources – 35million barrels of oil equivalent attributed to the Marigold and Isabella fields.

Ithaca has been asked to confirm whether a deal has been made with Hibiscus on the former.

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