Cairn spuds latest SNE appraisal

OE Staff Published Apr 18, 2016 8:14 am ET

Cairn Energy has spudded its latest appraisal well on the "world-class" SNE or Shelf Edge discovery offshore Senegal using the Ocean Rig Athena drillship, says partner FAR Ltd.

Last month, FAR said recent appraisal well drilling on the field had helped increase its estimated resources to at least 560 MMbbl and justified a "significant commercial development."

The SNE 4 well, 5km south-east of the SNE-1 discovery well, was spudded over the weekend to appraise the eastern extent of the field where it is aiming to:

intersect a key reservoir in the oil leg (refer Figure 3),
acquire reservoir information from all units to investigate lateral variability/connectivity and
increase the contingent resource base.

The SNE-4 well is in 940m water depth and will be drilled to a total depth of 3020m true vertical depth.

It will be drilled and logged and is expected to take approximately four weeks to complete.