Cairn Finds More Oil, Gas off Senegal

UK-based independent Cairn Energy said March 7 its recently completed SNE-5 appraisal well offshore Senegal produced oil, and yielded “multiple samples of oil and gas”.

Two drill stem tests “were in line with expectations” flowing at maximums of 4,500 barrels of oil/day for the first, and 4,200 b/d for the second; 24-hour tests on each yielded at least 3,000 b/d. SNE-5 has now been plugged and abandoned, and the drillship Stena DrillMax is proceeding to Cairn’s next well, VR-1, about 5 km west of its SNE-1 discovery.

Cairn operates the Sangomar Deep, Sangomar Offshore and Rufisque blocks offshore Senegal, with a 40% interest, alongside Australia’s Woodside 35% and FAR 15%. Senegal state Petrosen has 10%. However FAR has challenged how pre-emption rights were handled, when Woodside agreed to pay ConocoPhillips $350mn for its interest in mid-2016.

The joint venture has drilled seven wells in three years and has found contingent resources on SNE of more than 2.7bn bbls gross oil. Cairn, which announces its 2016 results on March 8, last month appointed Eric Hathon, formerly with Marathon Oil, as its exploration director from May 2017 to succeed Richard Heaton who is retiring.

Cairn-operated licences offshore Senegal (Map credit: Cairn)

Two weeks ago BP completed its almost-$1bn farm-in to gas and oil reserves discovered by US Kosmos Energy offshore Senegal/Mauritania, including the possible Tortue floating LNG project.

Mark Smedley