Cairn Energy posts positive results from Senegal well

Cairn Energy announced the results of another successful appraisal well offshore Senegal on Thursday.

The FTSE 250 company said rig performance continued to be “excellent” and operations had been safely and successfully completed ahead of schedule and under budget following drilling, logging and drill stem testing.

It said the objective of the SNE-6 well, together with the previous successful SNE-5 well, was to flow oil from one of the principal units in the upper reservoirs and demonstrate connectivity between the two wells.

Pressure data from SNE-6 immediately confirmed good connectivity with SNE-5 and as a result a short DST was performed, Cairn reported.

The company's analysis and integration of the collected dataset was continuing with initial results confirming main reservoir units, pressure data and fluid contacts were in line with previous SNE appraisal wells.

Multiple samples of oil were recovered during the DST, with analysis indicating oil of similar quality to previous wells.

Two DSTs were conducted within the upper reservoir units, with DST#1A flowed from an 11m interval at a maximum rate of 4,600 barrels of oil per day on a 60/64" choke.

A 48 hour main flow period was performed at 3,700 bopd on a 52/64" choke.

For DST#1B, an additional 12m zone was added and the well flowed at a maximum rate of 5,400 bopd on a 76/64" choke, followed by a 24 hour flow at an average rate of 4,700 bopd on a 64/64" choke.

Pressure data from SNE-6 confirmed that the upper reservoir was connected with SNE-5, around 1.6km away, Cairn said.

Work was ongoing to integrate the new data and to estimate the extent to which water flood secondary recovery can be applied to the upper reservoirs.

Further analysis would be performed once interference test data had been collected from the observation wells, Cairn explained, to determine the impact on modelled reservoir architecture, recoverable resource base and forward development plan.

The company expected to provide further information at its half year results in August.

“This is our ninth successful well in Senegal in three years,” said chief executive Simon Thomson.

“The results from this latest well together with SNE-5 and VR-1 provide essential data as we move towards submitting a development plan for the SNE field to the Government of Senegal in 2018.

“Operations now move to FAN SOUTH as we continue to test significant further prospectivity in the extensive acreage position.”