Major gas discovery offshore Senegal

Yaakar-1 is the first well in a series of four independent tests of the basin floor fan fairways, outboard of the proven slope channel trend opened with the Tortue-1 discovery. The well is situated in the Cayar Offshore Profond block approximately 95 km northwest of Dakar in almost 2550 m of water, and has been drilled to a total depth of approximately 4700 m. Yaakar-1 intersected a gross hydrocarbon column of 120 m in three pools within the primary Lower Cenomanian objective and encountered 45 m of net pay. Well results have confirmed the presence of thick, stacked reservoir sands over a large area, with both good porosity and permeability.

The Chairman and CEO, Andrew G. Inglis, said: “Kosmos has a 100% success rate in the basin with six consecutive successful exploration and appraisal wells drilled to date, confirming that our geologic model and geophysical tools are well calibrated. Yakaar-1 discovered a major gas resource. Together with the Teranga-1 discovery made last year, we believe this resource will support a second cost-competitive LNG hub. The result also confirms our view of the potential scale of the petroleum system offshore Mauritania and Senegal, in particular the basin floor fan systems which have now been further de-risked, with the well demonstrating that reservoir and trap both work in these previously untested fairways.”

In line with pre-drill expectations, the company estimates that Yakaar-1 discovered a gross Pmean gas resource of approximately 15 trillion ft³. Preliminary analysis of gas samples conducted on the rig suggest that the well encountered a gas with a condensate-to-gas ratio in the range previously encountered at Tortue and Teranga, approximately 15 – 30 bbl/million ft³. An appraisal programme is being planned to delineate the Yakaar discovery.

Kosmos claims that following the completion of operations on the Yakaar-1 well, the Atwood Achiever will mobilise to the Tortue-1 well to carry out a drill stem test (DST) on the Tortue discovery. This will allow the front-end engineering and design (FEED) to commence in 2H17, a final investment decision (FID) to be made in 2018, and first gas to be achieved in 2021.

The company has stated that it will provide further information on the Yakaar-1 discovery during its 1Q17 conference call.

Kosmos and BP each hold an effective 30% participating interest in the Cayar Offshore Profond license as a result of their respective ownership in the Kosmos BP Senegal Ltd joint venture (JV). As previously announced, BP has entered into an agreement in order to acquire a further 30% participating interest from Timis Corp., subjective to government approval. The national oil company, Société des Pétroles du Sénégal (Petrosen) holds 10%.

Read the article online at: https://www.lngindustry.com/liquid-natural-gas/08052017/major-gas-discovery-offshore-senegal/