Cairn Energy has struck oil at the VR-1 well, offshore Senegal, appraising the SNE oil discovery made back in 2014.
According to Far Ltd, a partner in the project, drilling operations at the VR-1 appraisal well offshore Senegal have reached a depth of 2759m, wireline logging and sampling through the SNE section are complete and preparations are underway for deepening the well into the Aptian carbonate objectives below the SNE field.
Far says that along with other appraisal wells, the well confirmed a 97m gross oil column with greater than expected net pay and thickest net pay of all appraisal wells drilled to date.
The company expects that the results of the VR-1 well, together with the recent SNE-5 results will lead to a revision of contingent resource estimate for the SNE field and have an impact on design of the development plan in the coming months. The 1C resource is currently 348mmbbls compared to the minimum economic field size for the SNE field of 200mmbbls.
The VR-1 well is the 8th successful well to be drilled offshore Senegal since drilling started in 2014.
FAR Managing Director, Cath Norman , said: “The VR-1 well has been highly successful, providing important information regarding the geology of the western flank of the SNE field and in particular the nature of the 500 series reservoirs. Understanding these reservoirs is critical to finalizing the Phase 1 development concept and plan.
“The operations team and the Stena DrillMAX continue to perform well and it bodes well for further cost savings in the drilling program. We look forward to bringing our shareholders results from our exploration of the deeper Aptian carbonate play.”