Cairn Flows Oil From SNE Probe
Tuesday 7 March 2017
UK company Cairn Energy has successfully flowed oil from the latest appraisal well at the SNE field off the coast of Senegal.
The operator revealed on Tuesday the SNE-5 well flowed at a maximum rate of about 4500 barrels of oil per day from an 18-metre interval on a 0.94-inch choke.
The interval also flowed at an average of about 2500 bpd during a 24-hour test on a 0.62-inch choke and roughly 3000 bpd over another 24-hour test on a 0.88-inch choke.
A drill stem test of an additional 8.5-metre zone flowed at a maximum rate of 4200 bpd and at an average of 3900 bpd on a one-inch choke over a 24-hour period.
Cairn said the main reservoir units, pressure data and fluid contacts matched previous SNE wells, as expected, with multiple samples of oil and gas recovered during wireline logging and drill stem tests indicating similar quality oil to previous wells.
SNE-5 has been plugged and abandoned and the drillship Stena DrillMax is now being moved about five kilometres to the west of the SNE-1 discovery well to drill the Vega-Regulus-1 well.
Vega-Regulus-1 will target an Aptian exploration target under the SNE field which has potential gross mean consolidated prospective resource of more than 100 million barrels.
The well will also appraise the SNE field with the aim targeting potential incremental resources and narrowing the range of field volumes.
It had been previously reported that Cairn and its partners would target the SNE-6 appraisal well immediately after SNE-5 but the Edinburgh-based company said drilling Vega-Regulus would give the joint venture more time to integrate the results of SNE-5 prior to moving to SNE-6 to complete a planned interference test.
Cairn operates the deep-water acreage containing the SNE discovery with a 40% stake, Woodside Petroleum has a 35% interest, Far Ltd holds 15% and Petrosen holds the remaining 10% equity.