The Edinburgh-based Cairn Energy PLC-led joint venture offshore Senegal has submitted its development and exploitation plan for the SNE oil and gas field to the Senegalese government, targeting the start of oil production in 2022 and the start of gas production in 2024.
The plan details how the group will develop the 500 million-bbl field in numerous separate phases building up to a plateau production of 100,000 b/d.
The program will begin with development of the S500 reservoir using up to 23 subsea oil production, water injection, and gas injection wells tied back to a floating production, storage, and offloading facility. Once oil production has been established, the group will turn to production of the field’s gas component. The FPSO will be designed to cater for future gas export to shore destined for the country’s domestic market.
Cairn said it had received responses to its tender for the FPSO along with those for the supporting infrastructure and the combine is now in the process of evaluating them before making up a short list ahead of an entry into the front-end engineering and design stage scheduled for late this year.
The company added that an environmental and social impact assessment study has also been submitted to Senegal’s National Technical Committee.
Cairn said a final investment decision on the project is expected in 2019.
The company also said that JV partner Woodside Energy (Senegal) BV had exercised its option to become operator of SNE field’s development and work is already under way to make the transfer from Cairn to Woodside, which now only requires government consent.
SNE field was the largest oil discovery in the world in 2014 and also was the first field discovered offshore Senegal.
The SNE joint venture comprises Cairn with 40%, Woodside 35%, Perth-based FAR Ltd. 15%, and Senegalese state-owned oil concern Petrosen with 10%. Petrosen also has the right to increase its equity to 18% on development.