Barryroe energy drilling license rejection

I see barryroe energy and landsdown energy are to pursue legal action against the Irish government and eamon Ryan the minister for energy over their rejection of the drilling licence for barryroe prospect.
Their main basis for action is that the licence was rejected on ideological grounds rather than deficiencies (department of energy reasoning) in the licence application itself.
It looks like the government could be on the hook for 100million compensation if it is pursued by landsdown energy a UK company through international arbitration.
One of the reasons given by the department of environment was that they were not happy with the funding behind the companies, this is rubbish because Barryroe energy is now being bankrolled by non other than Larry Goodman.
Another line of attack is that the department needlessly sat on their hands for 2 years over this decision.
It all points to an ideological decision taken by eamon Ryan's department because politically he could not be seen to green light irelands first commercial oil and gas prospect

We need our own supply of oil and gas and will do so for decades to come. We should be doing everything we can to get projects like this moving.

joe sod said:

One of the reasons given by the department of environment was that they were not happy with the funding behind the companies, this is rubbish because Barryroe energy is now being bankrolled by non other than Larry Goodman.

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From the article...

However, the Department of the Environment told Barryroe last Friday that the Minister’s decision was based on the applicant not meeting “investment cover criterion” in guidelines for offshore oil and gas exploration applications. The guidelines, issued in 2019, say licence applicants should have net tangible assets of 3½ times the cost of planned work.

That suggests that the applicants need net tangible assets of €140 million – a multiple of their existing position.

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ClubMan said:

From the article...

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There's always an element of "well they would say that wouldn't they?" in this type of statement.

But this is bad news for Ireland's overall reputation because a government department has to be seen to be above board and not making decisions on ideological grounds. The fact that these companies met all of the criteria, invested alot of money based on due process and that the Irish government would make their decision based on fairness and on the licence application itself and carry it out in a timely manner.
It appears that this did not happen and that eamon Ryan's ideological position on oil exploration along with others in that department was really behind this decision .
This would be analogous to Venezuela or Cuba making decisions on ideological grounds simply because they didn't like US companies. This isn't going away though

Most comprehensive article I have read on the barryroe licence saga that could end up costing the government hundreds of millions in compensation, larry Goodman has petitioned the high court to appoint an examiner to this case and landsdown energy is suiing the Irish government under the energy charter treaty , another exploration company has won a similar case against the Italian government recently. Here is an extract

" This story clearly has a long way to run yet and could end up costing the taxpayer a pretty penny. Ryan could well be called upon to justify his department’s approach to the Barryroe oil field, which currently looks to have verged on reckless given Ireland’s dependence on imported energy."

joe sod said:

" This story clearly has a long way to run yet and could end up costing the taxpayer a pretty penny.

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Agreed.

joe sod said:

Ryan could well be called upon to justify his department’s approach to the Barryroe oil field, which currently looks to have verged on reckless given Ireland’s dependence on imported energy."

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Problem is that Ryan will be retired (having lost his seat) and be sitting in his comfy armchair watching the cricket on his 56" tv screen long before this comes to court. Hence it will fall to whoever the Secretary General of the Department of Energy is in a few years' time to try to defend this strange decision, the poor sod!