JV partner FAR reports that JV partner Cairn Energy has spudded the first appraisal well to be drilled on the SNE oil field located 100km offshore Senegal. The SNE-2 well will be drilled in approx. 1,100 metres of water and drilled to a TDVSS (total vertical depth subsea) of approx. 2,770 metres before an evaluation program including logging, coring and flow testing is undertaken.
Three evaluation wells, SNE-2, SNE-3 and BEL-1, will be drilled back to back in a program that is estimated to be completed in mid-2016. Both SNE-2 and SNE-3 appraisal wells will be logged, cored and flow tested.
The aim of the appraisal program is to progress towards proving a minimum economic field size for the SNE discovery, which FAR estimates to be approx. 200 million barrels of oil. In addition, the BEL-1 well will drill the Bellatrix exploration prospect which will evaluate the untested Buried Hills play. BEL1 will also appraise the northern portion of the SNE oil field (refer Figures 1, 2).
For reasons of operational efficiency, the top hole of SNE-3 was drilled prior to the spud of SNE-2 (to a depth of 1,750 metres) by the Ocean Rig Athena (refer ASX announcement 2 Nov 2015).
Drilling of the SNE-2 well is expected to take approx. 5 weeks after which the logging and flow testing program will commence. On completion of the operations on SNE-2, SNE-3 will be re-entered and drilling and evaluation will be carried out on SNE-3 before commencement of the BEL-1 well.
FAR and its joint venture partners will be operating a tight hole policy, and therefore FAR does not anticipate making any further announcements regarding the drilling program until the SNE-2 well has reached TDVSS.
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