The Cairn Energy PLC-led group has made an oil discovery with the FAN South-1 exploration well drilled in deep water offshore Senegal.
The well was drilled to a total depth of 5,343 m. A suit of wireline logs was run that indicated oil in target Cretaceous-age reservoirs. Oil samples were obtained from the well.
The well had dual targets: an Upper Cretaceous stacked multilayer channelized turbidite fan prospect and a lower Cretaceous base-of-slope turbidite fan prospect similar to the FAN-1 discovery made in 2014 some 30 km to the northeast. Oil samples were obtained from the latter target. Preliminary analysis indicates 31° gravity oil.
Work is continuing to integrate this discovery with FAN-1 to establish the commercial potential of the resource.
The best predrill estimate of the prospective resource was 134 million bbl with an 18% chance of success.
FAN South-1 was the tenth well drilled offshore Senegal and the fourth in the group’s current campaign. It was drilled in 2,175 m of water and lies about 90 km offshore in the Sangomar Deep offshore block.
The well is now being plugged. Stena Drilling’s Stena DrillMAX drillship is being moved to the SNE North-1 location on the Sengalese shelf.
This well, in 900 m of water, will drill into the Sirius prospect, which has the potential to hold 294 million bbl of oil. It is located 15 km north of the SNE-1 oil discovery well and will be the most northerly step-out on trend with the SNE field.
The joint venture partners and their interests are still the subject of arbitration, but currently operator Cairn has 40%, ConocoPhillips (or Woodside Petroleum Ltd.) 40%, FAR Ltd. 15%, and the Senegalese state entity Petrosen 10%.
