Cairn Energy PLC, Edinburgh, is furthering its SNE field appraisal offshore Senegal after confirming gross oil intervals of 18½ m and 8½ m in its SNE-5 well (OGJ Online, Nov. 28, 2016).
SNE-5 targeted two units within an oil leg in the fields upper reservoirs. In two separate drill stem tests, the 18-m interval flowed 4,500 bo/d on a 60/64-in. choke. Two main flows of 24-hr each produced 2,500 bo/d on a 40/64-in. choke and 3,000 bo/d on a 56/64-in. choke. The second drill stem test in the 8½-m zone flowed 3,900 bo/d on a 1-in. choke.
The SNE-5 well has been plugged and abandoned and the Stena DrillMAX drillship is moving about 5 km west of the SNE-1 discovery where it will commence drilling the Vega-Regulus (VR-1) well. VR-1 will explore an Aptian Carbonate target and will serve as appraisal well in SNE field, Cairn said. The company also said Aptian Carbonates underlying the SNE field have a prospective resource of 100 million bbl.
VR-1 results will further narrow the range of SNE field volumes and allow the JV partners to integrate the SNE-5 results before moving on to its planned SNE-6 appraisal well.
