Cairn and its partners are seeking the approval of the Senegalese government for the development of the SNE field, a deepwater oil field located offshore Senegal.
Image: Map showing the SNE field offshore Senegal. Photo: courtesy of Cairn Energy PLC.
In this regard, the partners have submitted the development and exploitation plan for the SNE field, which is contained in the Sangomar Deep Offshore block, 100km south of Dakar.
An approval is expected to come later this year, said Cairn, a London Stock Exchange-listed oil and gas exploration and development company.
The SNE project will be the first offshore oil development in the African country should it receive approval and move ahead with its execution. Spread over 400km2, the SNE field was discovered in 2014.
Its development and exploitation plan calls for field development in multiple phases to produce oil and gas. Cairn estimates to produce around 500 million barrels of oil (mmbbls) and gross production of 100,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd) from the SNE field with first oil aimed to be produced in 2022.
The first phase of the offshore Senegal oil field calls for drilling of up to 26 production, gas and water injection wells with production to be carried out using a floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) facility having a production capacity of around 100,000 barrels per day of crude oil.
Cairn, in a statement, said: “The tender responses for the FPSO facility and supporting subsea infrastructure have been received and are under evaluation and short-listing ahead of Front End Engineering Design (FEED) planned later this year.
“In parallel with the detailed engineering work, an Environmental and Social Impact Assessment study has been submitted to the National Technical Committee.”
Apart from the plan submission, Cairn revealed that Woodside Energy (Senegal), one of its partners in the offshore Senegalese oil field, has exercised its option to take up operatorship of the SNE field development.
Cairn said that work is going on to facilitate transfer of its operatorship to Woodside Energy, which is currently awaiting approval from the government.
Currently, Cairn holds a stake of 40% in the SNE field while Woodside holds 35% stake. The other partners are FAR with a stake of 15% and Senegal national oil company Petrosen, which holds the remaining 10% stake.