CAIRN Energy shares have risen six per cent after the oil and gas company announced a ninth successive drilling success in its pioneering exploration programme off Senegal.
The results of the latest appraisal well drilled by Edinburgh-based Cairn underlined the potential of one of the finds made by the company off the West Africa country.
They will boost hopes that Cain has discovered a major new basin in an area where little exploration activity has been completed.
The well to appraise the SNE fields flowed oil at strong rates from both the targeted locations.
The results increased confidence in the company’s ability to recover significant amounts of oil from the area of the SNE find.
The company reckons SNE may contain 2.7 billion barrels oil and may have been the largest oil discovery made in the world in 2014.
The latest well, SNE-6, was the fifth appraisal well on the find.
Cairn chief executive Simon Thomson noted: “This is our ninth successful well in Senegal in three years.”
The company expects to submit a plan to develop SNE to the Senegal government next year. The rig used for the latest appraisal work on SNE will move on to drill a well on a prospect close to the FAN find Cairn made in 2014.
In a note on the SNE-6 well, analysts at Cairn’s joint house broker Jefferies described SNE as basin opening. They noted indications that majors are starting to take a close interest in Senegal.
They noted recent indications that majors are starting to take a close interest in Senegal.
BP and Total have acquired interests off the country in the past month.
Mr Thomson will provide an update on progress at Cairn’s annual general meeting today.
The company acquired its interests off Senegal under his plan to combine potentially transformational exploration work in frontier areas with lower risk activity in the North Sea.
Cairn has amassed extensive acreage in the North Sea. It has stakes in the giant Kraken heavy oil field off Shetland and the Catcher field east of Aberdeen. Both fields are expected to be brought into production in coming months.
Shares in Cairn Energy closed up 11.3p at 209.1p.
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