London, UK | – FAR Limited an independent, Australian oil and gas explorer and its Senegal joint venture partners have agreed to perform a drilling programme in SNE oilfield in offshore Senegal.
Scheduled to start in the first quarter of 2017, the drilling programme will comprise two appraisal wells.
The wells will be drilled to optimise the SNE field development plan before it is submitted to the Government of Senegal for approval.
Australian energy company FAR Ltd. says field planning for the SNE reservoir offshore Senegal is under way. Image courtesy FAR Ltd.
The joint venture has completed a thorough rig tender evaluation procedure and executed a contract to use Stena DrillMAX drillship in this drilling programme.
The two wells, SNE-5 and SNE-6, are designed to evaluate the upper SNE reservoir units (400 series). The wells will also emphasise on the connectivity of the reservoir section and depositional model assessed from existing wells with high-quality 3D seismic data.
At SNE-5, the plan is to carry out a drill stem testing (DST) and place permanent gauges in the upper reservoir units. After the drilling of SNE-5, SNE-6 would be drilled and is also scheduled to undergo an extended DST programme and generate a pulse that would get registered in the gauges located within the upper reservoir section of SNE-5 and SNE-3.
Successful test results will allow Far to recover more oil from the reservoir units.
The joint venture is currently preparing the development plan for SNE field. The pre-FEED activities are currently devised to determine the final project size and scope.
The two wells are expected to play a crucial role in optimising the SNE project by providing important data for SNE reservoir management.
Far managing director Cath Norman said: “We look forward to the results from the next phase of drilling and evaluation activity over our world class SNE oilfield, offshore Senegal. The Stena Drillmax has completed an efficient drilling programme elsewhere offshore West Africa and is currently located in Las Palmas.
“After a rigorous tender process, our joint venture has been able to secure the rig at a very attractive operating day rate, reflecting current market conditions and at a substantially lower cost than our two previous drilling campaigns. We look forward to providing updates in the coming weeks regarding expected spud date.”
The Stena DrillMAX has been contracted for two firm wells including additional option wells.
Stena DrillMAX is a DP Class 3 drillship with 85,000 barrels of crude storage capability. It also holds the capacity of 3,000m water depth and 10,700m drilling depth.
