Providence’s Barryroe oil field could be pumping oil as early as 2018 and Cork will be on track to become an oil and gas hub, if people in the services industry make the investment of time and effort to install the full suite of service industries, he said.
Mr O’Reilly said people in the oil industry in Aberdeen are “very aware that Ireland is taking off and that Cork is going to be the place”.
He called for information sharing with the Scottish city. “I don’t know if you have ever been to Aberdeen, but Cork is a lot nicer and you have the tax rate here.”
Despite praising Ireland’s corporate tax rate, he took issue with a portrayal that Ireland’s oil and gas resources have been given away.
He argued that while the tax on extractive industries in Ireland was lower than in Norway and the UK, that is because they have proven industries in place.
Mr O’Reilly said that “Norway produces 2m barrels of oil every day hence they have a 78% tax rate; the UK a million-plus barrels a day; Ireland zero. Now hopefully we are going to change that, but you have to see it in that context.”
“The activity like we are leading with Providence coupled with the proactive stance of the Government... coupled with the geopolitical climate in Ireland; you have got to understand that the majority of the oil in the world is in not nice places.
“This is a lovely place, I mean, we had guys working on the rig in Barryroe who could fly back into Cork and go play some golf at the Old Head. You can’t do that in Kurdistan”.