Cairn Energy Plc, operator of the Senegal joint venture, has announced it will drill an exploration well on the Bellatrix prospect offshore Senegal as the third well in the upcoming appraisal and exploration program.
FAR and its joint venture partners in Senegal will start appraisal drilling on the world class SNE discovery in early Q4. The three wells in the firm drilling program is expected to be drilled using the ConocoPhillips contracted Ocean Rig Athena drillship.
Two wells will be drilled to appraise the SNE field and are aimed at progressing towards proving the threshold economic field size which the Operator announced is >= 200 mmbbls for a foundation project. A third well will be the first exploration well to be drilled in the blocks following the discoveries in the FAN-1 and SNE-1 wells and will be aimed at building the resource base within tie-back range of a hub development over the SNE field.
The joint venture submitted a three year evaluation work program to the Government of Senegal in early May 2015 which the Operator announced has been agreed by the Government of Senegal. This program included the initial firm three well drilling program and a 3D seismic survey. The three firm wells and final seismic products in this first phase of the evaluation program are expected to be completed around mid-2016.
In a presentation to its shareholders overnight, Cairn Energy exploration director Richard Heaton revealed that the third well in the drilling program would target the Bellatrix prospect. Mr Heaton told Cairn shareholders, “This is an exploration well primarily on the Bellatrix prospect but we’ve now found that the Bellatrix prospect overlies the northern end of the SNE field on the latest 3D processing, which is very convenient.” Mr Heaton said,
“This will define the northern end of the (SNE) field. It allows us to characterize the reservoirs there. We’ll have an extensive logging program here, but at the moment there isn’t a firm coring program here or a firm testing program. Obviously results will depend a little bit on how the first two wells also go, so we have some flexibility here.” FAR Managing Director, Cath Norman, said, “The Bellatrix prospect is one of a number of high quality targets the joint venture has identified in both the Rufisque and Sangomar licence areas offshore Senegal.” “The great attraction in drilling Bellatrix is that it will allow us to gain additional information on the extent of the SNE field while also testing a high quality exploration target of 168mmbbls* in its own right. Success in Bellatrix will add considerably to the commercial prospects for the SE field. “We look forward to the start of drilling in October.”
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