MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Foreign Office to meet Rockhopper investors over Falklands oil plans

Rockhopper Exploration has plans to invest 2 billion dollars in recent discoveries

Britain will meet shareholders from explorer Rockhopper to discuss the Falkland Islands and the location for the company's proposed 2 billion dollars oil project based on recent discovery estimates.

“Senior Foreign Office officials will be meeting with investors and potential investors in Rockhopper to discuss the Falklands,” a Foreign Office spokeswoman said on Monday according to Reuters.

Fidelity Worldwide, Royal London Asset Management and Legal & General Investment Management are among Rockhopper's top ten shareholders.

“These are education sessions held for the benefit of investors and potential investors to teach them about the relationship between the British government and the Falkland Islands government” a source familiar with the situation said of the meetings.

The emergence of the British Overseas Territory as an oil producer could further stoke tensions with Argentina which claims the Falklands and 29 years ago (April 1982) invaded and militarily occupied the Islands until they were defeated and ousted by a British Task Force 74 days later (June 1982).

The Foreign Office officials “will discuss any issue that Rockhopper raises,” added the Foreign Office spokeswoman, although she declined to comment on when the meetings were scheduled to take place.

Rockhopper, which declined to comment on the meetings between the Foreign Office and its investors, said last week it expected to start pumping oil in 2016 from the Sea Lion discovery made last year.

Rockhopper said its reserves, which it estimated at around 350 million barrels of recoverable oil, were large enough for development, having spent recent months drilling a series of appraisal wells to establish the size of the oil field.