Cairn Energy – the Edinburgh-based oil exploration company – has announced positive and significant test drilling results from its Senegal-2 appraisal well off West Africa.
The SNE-2 well is located in 1,200m water depth and is approximately 100 kilometres (km) offshore in the Sangomar Offshore block 2,800m below sea level.
During testing, oil flowed variably at a rate of around 8,000 barrels of oil per day to 1,000 bpd, indicating a total reservoir of more than 600 million barrels of recoverable oil.
Initial indications confirm the same 32 degree API oil quality as seen in SNE-1, confirming that these reservoirs are able to produce at viable rates and ‘make a material contribution to resource volumes.’
Operations have been safely and successfully completed following drilling, coring, logging and drill-stem testing (DST). The well is now being plugged and abandoned.
Both the financial and climate conditions of the mid-Atlantic are considerably more clement than in the North Sea and North Atlantic for oil exploration companies.
Simon Thomson, Chief Executive, Cairn Energy, said: “We are delighted with the results of the SNE-2 well and in particular the well tests, which are significant in demonstrating the ability of the reservoirs to flow at commercially viable rates.
“The results help to confirm the overall scale and extent of the resource base in Senegal and further appraisal activity is expected to lead to future revision of the estimates. We now eagerly look forward to the results of the SNE-3 well.”
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