Cairn announced the results of the SNE-5 appraisal well offshore Senegal where operations have been safely and successfully completed ahead of schedule and under budget following drilling, logging, drill stem testing and the setting of pressure gauges.
Cairn's analysis and integration of the dataset collected is continuing with initial results in line with expectations and as follows:
– SNE-5 targeted a location in the Upper Reservoirs where two principal units are located within the oil leg
– Main reservoir units, pressure data and fluid contacts match previous SNE wells as expected
– Multiple samples of oil and gas were recovered during wireline logging and drill stem tests; analysis indicates oil of similar quality to previous wells
– Two drill stem tests were conducted within the Upper Reservoir units over gross intervals of 18m and 8.5m and were in line with expectations:
– DST 1a flowed from an 18m interval at a maximum rate of ~4,500 barrels of oil per day (bopd) on a 60/64" choke. Two main flows of 24 hours each were performed; the first at ~2,500 bopd on a 40/64" choke, followed by a second at ~3,000 bopd on 56/64" choke
– For DST 1b an additional 8.5m zone was added and the well flowed at a maximum rate of 4,200 bopd and for 24 hours at an average rate of ~3,900 bopd on 64/64"choke
The SNE-5 well has been plugged and abandoned and the Stena DrillMAX drill ship is moving location to commence operations shortly on the Vega-Regulus (VR-1) well, ~5 km to the west of the SNE-1 discovery.
VR-1 has two objectives; an Aptian exploration target and an appraisal objective in the SNE field.
The well will target the Vega-Regulus exploration prospect in the Aptian Carbonates underlying the SNE field which has potential gross mean consolidated prospective resource of more than 100 mmbbls.
In addition, the well will further appraise the SNE field targeting potential incremental resources. The results will help narrow the range of SNE field volumes and also allow the JV time to fully integrate the results of SNE-5 prior to moving to appraisal well SNE-6 to complete the planned interference test.