Gas discovery at Bellatrix–Fourth appraisal well confirmed
Published by Louise Mulhall,
Editorial Assistant
Oilfield Technology,
Gas has been discovered by FAR Limited and its partners in the BEL-1 well offshore Senegal.
The BEL-1 well has also proven the northern extent of the world class SNE field, continued FAR’s unbroken run with five wells encountering hydrocarbons from five wells drilled and further confirms the opening of a major new global oil and gas province in offshore West Africa.
FAR Ltd managing director, Cath Norman, said:
“This is yet another amazing result for FAR and its team. Its track record in an entirely new province of five consecutive successful wells is a testament to the FAR team of professionals and demonstrates what creative and dedicated small companies can achieve.”
The operational performance of the Ocean Rig Athena and the operations team on BEL-1 well has again been outstanding completing the well ahead of schedule and budget justifying the Joint Venture’s decision to proceed with a fourth appraisal well. We look forward to the results of the SNE-4 well which we expect will start in the next few days.”
Initial exploration results from the successful BEL-1 well include:
BEL-1 well SNE appraisal results include:
Initial measurements show similar oil quality as seen in SNE-1, SNE-2 and SNE-3.
The BEL-1 well was the first well to target the shallow Buried Hills exploration play, just one of multiple exploration play types identified within FAR’s offshore Senegal blocks.
The BEL-1 well result confirms the Buried Hills play type and the presence of good reservoirs and regionally extensive seals. Theseshallower reservoirs were also encountered in SNE-3, 9 kmto the south (as seen in Figure 2).
With the discovery of gas in good shallow reservoirs, the BEL-1 well results along with the latest 3D seismic (2015 survey as seen in Figure 1), will be incorporated into the assessment for potential down-dip oil in shallower reservoirs across FAR’s Senegal blocks including the Djifferepermit.
The successful appraisal well results from the BEL-1 well are expected to support another revision of FAR’s resource estimates for the SNE field.Fourth appraisal well to be drilled given the success of the ongoing appraisal programme, the Joint Venture has agreed that the Ocean Rig Athena will now drill SNE-4, located 5 km south-east of the SNE-1 discovery well, to appraise the eastern extent of the field, where it is aiming to confirm the nature of the upper reservoirs in the oil zone (the location of SNE-4 is shown in Figure 2).
The BEL-1 well was located in 1031m water depth and was drilled to a total depth of 2767 m TVD.
The well was drilled, cored and logged as planned and completed ahead of schedule.
FAR’s Senegal Joint Venture partners are:
Cairn Energy PLC (Operator) 40%, ConocoPhillips 35% and Petrosen 10%.
Adapted from a press release by Louise Mulhall
Read the article online at: https://www.oilfieldtechnology.com/drilling-and-production/11042016/gas-discovery-at-bellatrix-fourth-appraisal-well-confirmed/
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