The Falkland Islands government has granted a one year extension of production licences PL023 and PL024, in which oil explorer Rockhopper has a two-fifths interest.

The licences have been extended until November 18th, with no requirement for the operator to perform further work on the licences in that time.

Rockhopper's head honcho, Sam Moody, said the extension of the licences would provide a further opportunity to evaluate the largely unexplored potential of the assets while the firm continues to work with Premier Oil to advance the Sea Lion project located elsewhere in the basin. Premier paid $231m back in July for a 60% stake in Rockhopper's licences in the North Falkland Basin.

Rockhopper noted in passing that production licences PL003 and PL004 were also recently extended, until May 1st 2016, with a one well work commitment during this period, but Rockhopper has much smaller interests in these assets, which are operated by Desire Petroleum; it has a 3% interest in PL003 and PL004a, a 10% interest in PL004c and a 24% interest in PL004b, which contains the extension of the Sea Lion Field as well as the Beverley, Casper and Casper South discoveries.

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