The company said the five successful licence applications were “Ossola” and “Opera” located near Milan, and “La Prospera”, “Podere Gallina” and “La Risorta” near Bologna. Based on work done to date, the licence areas contain eight new gas prospects and two new exploration targets.

“This is a major increase in the size and depth of our Italian portfolio,” Po Valley chief executive Michael Masterman said this morning.

“The new applications provide Po Valley with the potential to delineate new gas/oil fields to build on the drill and imminent production successes of our first three projects – Sillaro, Vitalba and Santa Maddalena – which were the subject of our prospectus two years ago.

“The new assets provide the company with some exciting large-scale exploration projects within the dynamics of northern Italy, which we identified as the most prospective for near-term development and early production into the high-demand Italian and European energy markets.”