Offshore staff
EDINBURGH, UK– Although analysis and dataset integration is still ongoing, Cairn Energy has reported that initial results from the SNE-5 well offshore Senegal are in line with its expectations, with the oil encountered of similar quality to previous wells.
The company said multiple samples of oil and gas were recovered from the well, which was spudded in January and is the latest to be drilled on itsdeepwater SNE oil field.
SNE-5 was said to be completed early and under budget, following drilling, logging, drillstem testing, and the setting of pressure gauges.
The well targeted a location in the upper reservoirs, where two principal units are located within the oil leg. These units, pressure data, and fluid contacts match the previous SNE wells, as expected.
Two drillstem tests were conducted within the upper reservoir units over gross intervals of 18 m (59 ft) and 8.5 m (28 ft). These were also consistent with expectations, Cairn reported.
DST 1a flowed from an 18-m interval at a maximum rate of around 4,500 b/d on a 60/64-in. choke. Two main flows of 24 hours each were performed; the first at about 2,500 b/d on a 40/64-in. choke, followed by a second at ~3,000bod/ on 56/64-in. choke.
An additional 8.5-m zone was added for DST 1b, and the well flowed at a maximum rate of 4,200 b/d for 24 hours at an average rate of 3,900 b/d on 64/64-in. choke.
The SNE-5 well has been plugged and abandoned and theStena DrillMAX drillship is moving to begin operations soon on the Vega-Regulus (VR-1) well, which is around 5 km (3 mi) to the west of the SNE-1 discovery.
This well is said to have two objectives, an Aptian exploration target and an appraisal objective in the SNE field. It will target the Vega-Regulus exploration prospect in the Aptian Carbonates underlying the SNE field, which has potential gross mean consolidated prospective resource of more than 100 MMbbl.
In addition, Cairn said, the well will further appraise the SNE field, targeting potential incremental resources. The results will help narrow the range of the field volumes and also allow the joint venture time to fully integrate the results of SNE-5 prior to moving to appraisal well SNE-6 to complete the planned interference test.
Australian partner FAR said in January said the current well and the follow-on SNE-6 will assess the upper SNE reservoir units, specifically reservoir connectivity and deliverability, via flow tests, including interference testing.
Last year, the group successfully drilled the SNE-2, SNE-3, BEL-1, and SNE-4 appraisal wells on the SNE field. SNE-5 and SNE-6 should assist placement of development wells to optimize oil recovery, as FAR explained in January.
03/07/2017
