Cairn Spuds 5th Senegal Well

Cairn exploration director Richard Heaton has confirmed that the fifth well in the company’s current deepwater drilling campaign offshore Senegal, Bellatrix-1 (BEL-1), was spudded this month and was asked at a March 15 analysts conference call about the “risk” that BEL-1 might be gas.

“We’ve seen both gas and oil in the SNE accumulations … It could be a mix of gas and oil, just all one,” replied Heaton. “We haven’t drilled through rocks of this age” [in this area].

Last week Cairn said its fourth well, the SNE-3 appraisal well, test-flowed oil at a peak of 5,400 b/d. That and its previous SNE wells – the first to be drilled off Senegal in more than 20 years – plus world-class gas discoveries farther north on either side of the Mauritania-Senegal border by US firm Kosmos in 2015-16, have excited explorers in the area. This week UK explorer Sterling said it would maintain its interest in Mauritania block C-10.  

Cairn CEO Simon Thomson announced March 15 that the company’s 2C (P50) current oil resource estimate for the SNE field had been increased by 20% to 385mn bbls and that positive results from SNE-3 provide the potential to further increase the field’s size. “Cairn estimates that the existing two discoveries and the currently identified prospects and leads have an estimated mean risked resource base of more than 1bn bbls,” its statement read. Cairn has a 40% interest as operator in the three Senegal offshore blocks, with ConocoPhillips having a 35% interest, Australia’s FAR 15% and state-owned Petrosen 10%.

Heaton says if Senegal goes to plan and the finds are declared commercial, then an anchor project based on a 50-100,000 b/d Floating Production Storage and Offloader (FPSO) offshore platform could start producing oil "from 2021 at the earliest".

Cairn also expects first oil in 1H2017 from both its Kraken and Catcher UK oil field developments, each expected to plateau at 50,000 boe/d – which together should yield 25,000 boe/d net to Cairn. The firm added that international arbitration proceedings have commenced to settle an Indian tax dispute, with Cairn claiming $1bn compensation.

Mark Smedley