Through a second agreement with Danica Resources, which follows the Jutland deal last year, New World now has 90 days to carry out due diligence and complete a competent persons report in regards to a 6,400 square kilometre oil and gas concession.
The concession spans both onshore and offshore acreage on the northern flank of the productive South Permian Basin in Southern Denmark.
"We are delighted to have been granted the exclusive opportunity to add this highly prospective licence to our growing portfolio of projects,” said chief executive William Kelleher.
“As was the case with the Danica Jutland Project, our first two licences in Denmark, we are fortunate to be dealing with many of the same individuals who are also closely involved in our project in Belize where our Competent Person recently identified two prospects with a combined P50 estimate of 294 million barrels and an Expected Monetary Value of US$1.53 billion.
“This group of entrepreneurs, geoscientists and businessmen are highly skilled and have many years of industry experience and I look forward to further strengthening our relationship.”
New World explains that an independent petroleum engineer has evaluated the general prospectivity of the acreage, and also looked specifically at the Als prospect which itself has two targets.
The first of the Als targets, the Zechstein, is believed to have a one in eight probability of geologic success. The independent evaluation gave it an estimated 97 million barrels of oil (P50) and a net present value of US$1.039 billion.
Meanwhile the Rotliegendes target was considered to have a one in nine chance of success. It was estimated to have 1.4 trillion cubic feet of gas (P50) and a NPV of US$1.4 billion.
The engineer’s letter of opinion also said that the Als Prospect is drillable from an onshore location on the coast.
New World confirmed it has hired RPS Energy to carry out the CPR by the end of January 2012.
Once the CPR is complete and New World has completed its due diligence the firm will agree a definitive farm-in deal. At that point New World will become the operator of the project.
Kelleher added: "Today's news is another example of New World delivering on its commitment to identify and secure quality projects that fit the Company's stated investment policy.
“Licence No. 1/08 meets all our investment criteria: a relatively under-explored concession in an already producing region, located in a stable and investor friendly country that is in close proximity to existing markets where oil and gas are in high demand and command a world oil price.
He also says the project would be another attractive asset in its data room for possible participation by interested companies.
“While this Licence is tremendously exciting, management remain focussed on progressing all our projects to development and look forward to providing the market with further updates in due course," Kelleher said.
Last week New World set up a virtual data room for potential partners to evaluate the Blue Creek and Danica Jutland projects.
This action was taken after New World received a number of unsolicited approaches to participate in these projects.
The Blue Creek project is located in the productive Petén Basin in Northwest Belize. A recent competent persons report, produced by RPS Energy, assessed two prospects and estimated that they could potentially contain a combined 294 million barrel oil reserve.