Cairn Finds Oil with 8th Senegal Well

Australian independent FAR, a junior partner of operator Cairn Energy offshore Senegal, said March 27 that the partnership has found oil.

The VR-1 well is 5 km from the SNE-1 discovery well and is being drilled to appraise the lower and upper reservoir units in the western part of the SNE field. The well intersected a 97-metre gross oil column across a number of reservoirs with highest net pay in any well drilled to date.

FAR expects that results from the VR-1 well will contribute to a revision of resource estimate for the SNE field.

Graphic source: FAR Ltd

FAR CEO Cath Norman said: “The operations team and the Stena DrillMax continue to perform well and it bodes well for further cost savings in the drilling programme.

VR1 is the eighth successful well to be drilled offshore Senegal by Cairn, which operates the Sangomar Deep, Sangomar Offshore and Rufisque blocks offshore Senegal with a 40% interest, alongside Australia’s Woodside (35%), FAR (15%) and Senegal state Petrosen (10%). Previous wells found oil and gas. But FAR has challenged how pre-emption rights were handled, when Woodside agreed to pay ConocoPhillips $350mn for its stake in mid-2016.

Mark Smedley