Statoil and ExxonMobil win Irish oil licenses

OSLO (Reuters) - Oil majors Statoil (NYSE: STL) and ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM) have been awarded six options to search for oil and gas offshore Ireland in the country's latest licensing round, Statoil said on Wednesday.

The two firms each hold 50-percent stakes in all the acreage. Statoil will have four operatorships, while ExxonMobil will have the remaining two.

Work on the licenses is for the time being limited to carrying out seismic surveys during 2016 and 2017, with the option to drill at a later stage depending on the analysis of the data, Statoil said.

"This supports Statoil's exploration strategy of early access at scale and enables us to apply the exploration knowledge and experience we have gained globally and specifically on the conjugate margin offshore Newfoundland," the company added.

(Reporting by Terje Solsvik, editing by Gwladys Fouche)

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