FAR To Drill Deepwater Gambia Well

Australian independent FAR is to drill what it says will be the first well offshore Gambia for 40 years. It is targeting oil but it will be close to both past oil and gas finds, in water depth of 1,017 metres and 112 km offshore in block A2. 

CEO Cath Norman said: “We are very excited to be drilling the Samo prospect which is a large prospect along trend from the giant SNE oil field." The latter was found offshore Senegal by UK firm Cairn Energy; the latter's interest is 40% while FAR has 15%, Woodside 35% and Senegalese state Petrosen 10%. 

Samo Prospect has two main targets: an upper reservoir interval that contained liquid-rich gas at SNE and a lower reservoir interval that was oil-bearing at SNE. The two target intervals are assessed to have a combined prospective resource of 825 mn barrels of oil. 

Samo-1 well is planned to spud in early Q4 2018 and to take some 40 days to drill using the Stena DrillMax drillship.

Gambia blocks A2 and A5 are both FAR-operated with 40% equity, alongside Malaysian state Petronas 40% which is carrying some of FAR's costs, plus Johannesburg-listed Erin Energy with 20%.  

FAR-operated blocks A2 and A5 offshore Gambia and the Senegalese SNE oilfield (Credit: FAR)