Oil exploration company Fastnet has announced this morning the acquisition of Moroccan based company Pathfinder Hydrocarbon.
The company recently listed on the alternative investment markets in Dublin and London.
The deal, worth $8m, will be made up of an initial payment of $1m and the acquisition of over 40 million shares priced at 11 pence per share.
Fastnet is currently involved in exploration of the southeast of Ireland; this gives the company access to the lucrative west African oil exploration zone.
Speaking to RTE's Morning Ireland, Fastnet Chairman Cathal Friel said there were many similarities between the African coast and the Celtic Sea in that both areas had been overlooked in the past 30 years.
"A few years ago, nobody had any interest in Africa. Today it's hot territory," he said.
On its African prospects, Cathal Friel pointed to Tullow's success with the Jubilee oil field off the coast of Ghana.
He said the Moroccan coast had many similarities and Fastnet was hoping to repeat this success.
Cathal Friel said he was also very confident of prospects for the Celtic Basin off the Irish coast.
He described the Corrib and Kinsale finds as 'needles in a haystack' when they were discovered in the 1970s but he believed there was more there.
