Kosmos Spuds Fresh Wildcat Off Senegal
Friday 24 March 2017
Kosmos Energy has spun the bit on its latest wildcat off West Africa as the US independent and partner BP kicked off a four-well drilling programme off Senegal and Mauritania.
The pair have begun drilling operations at the Yakaar prospect in the Cayar Offshore Profond block with the Atwood Oceanics-owned drillship Atwood Achiever, Dallas-based Kosmos said on Friday.
The well, on a prospect formerly known as Teranga West, is the first in the second phase of a multi-well exploration programme off Senegal and Mauritania, where Kosmos has already unearthed significant gas discoveries and where UK supermajor BP has in the past few months farmed in.
The Yakaar wildcat is located 40 kilometres west of the Teranga gas discovery probe.
It was reported in January that Kosmos and BP were to start the four-well programme in the second quarter, targeting potential resources of up to 15 billion barrels of oil equivalent.
Two wildcats are set to be drilled off each country. Brian Maxted, chief exploration officer, said recently that Requin-Tigre in Senegal’s St Louis Profond licence was the “stand-out” prospect in terms of its size, estimated at 5 billion to 10 billion boe, while its other prospects “are all multi-billion barrel opportunities."
These include Yakaar plus Lamantin, the latter of which straddles blocks C6 and C12 off Mauritania, and Requin which lies across blocks C8 and C13.
Kosmos' plan has been to drill an exploration probe first to be followed by a drill stem test on the 15 trillion cubic foot Tortue gas discovery that straddles the boundary between the two countries. Two more exploration wells are set to follow in 2017, with Atwood Achiever expected to wrap up the current campaign in early 2018 with the fourth and final probe.
BP in mid-December signed agreements with Kosmos giving it a 62% operated interest in Kosmos’ exploration blocks in Mauritania, as well as a 32.49% effective working interest in its Senegal exploration blocks.
The deal will see BP invest nearly $1 billion, mostly in the form of a multi-year exploration and development carry.
BP will pay Kosmos a cash bonus of $162 million on completion of the deal, while it will also carry Kosmos’ exploration and appraisal costs of $221 million along with Kosmos’ development costs of $533 million, including front-end engineering and design studies.
Kosmos will operate during exploration and BP will take over when development work begins.