Soliton Resources, a privately held oil and gas exploration company, has farmed out its UK Central North Sea Licence P2390 (Blocks 23/26e and 30/1d) to Equinor UK.

Licence P2390 contains the Isolde prospect, a shallow, low risk and potentially sizeable exploration target that has historically been overlooked, partially as a result of seismic imaging limitations on legacy 3D data, Soliton said in a statement on Friday.

Solition also said that Equinor will acquire an 85% working interest in Licence P2390 and assume operatorship to undertake an initial work program to improve the quality of existing 3D seismic data.

Subsequently, Equinor can elect to drill an exploration well on the Isolde prospect. Equinor will refund license costs incurred to date by Soliton, pay a consideration to reflect inter alia the option to elect to drill and will carry all future costs associated with Soliton’s retained 15% interest, including exploration drilling if elected.

In the event of exploration success, the carry will continue through all further activities, including appraisal drilling, until Equinor confirms the presence of a feasible investment project, ready to progress into detailed development evaluation and planning.

Regulatory approvals for the transaction have already been received.

Soliton Resources’ founder and Managing Director, Graham Goffey, commented: “I am delighted to announce that Equinor are joining Soliton to progress the exploration of the Isolde prospect. The high level of industry interest in what proved to be a particularly competitive farm-out process is a clear indication of the merits of the Isolde prospect and I am very pleased that Soliton is to be joined by an operator of Equinor’s scale, capability and ambition.

“Soliton’s application for the Isolde prospect in the UK’s 30th licensing round was facilitated by the Oil and Gas Authority’s flexible ‘Innovate’ license structure and its data access initiatives, which have lowered the barriers to entry for newly established companies such as Soliton.”