FAR has announced that after the successful drilling of the first two appraisal wells of the SNE oil field appraisal program offshore Senegal, the third well BEL-1 has been drilled by its partner, Cairn Energy. 

The BEL-1 well is to be spud in about 1,100 metres of water and drilled to a total vertical depth subsea of about 2,757 metres prior to the commencement of an evaluation program which includes logging and coring.

The evaluation program is to be carried out in order to advance towards verifying a least possible economic field size for the SNE discovery, which the company estimates to be about 200 million BO.  Furthermore, the BEL-1 well will be intensified to evaluate the northern part of the SNE oil field as well as drill the Bellatrix exploration prospect.

According to Energy-pedia, after the wireline logging and coring program the well will be plugged and abandoned in line with plans.  Operations on the BEL-1 well are estimated to be concluded in April.

Anita Fatunji