Results from Cairn’s SNE-6 appraisal well offshore Senegal have confirmed connectivity with its SNE-5 well, proving oil of similar quality, the company said in a news release.

“This is our ninth successful well in Senegal in three years,” Cairn CEO Simon Thomson said in the release. “The results from this latest well, together with SNE-5 and VR-1, provide essential data as we move toward submitting a development plan for the SNE Field to the government of Senegal in 2018.”

Two drillstem tests were conducted in the upper reservoir units, the company said. During the first test oil flowed from an 11-m interval at a maximum rate of about 4,600 barrels per day (bbl/d). For the second test, an additional 12-m zone was added and the well flowed at a maximum of about 5,400 bbl/d. Pressure data from SNE-6 confirmed the upper reservoir is connected with SNE-5.

“Further analysis will be performed once interference test data has been collected from the observation wells, to determine the impact on modeled reservoir architecture, recoverable resource base and forward development plan,” Cairn said. “We expect to provide further information at our half-year results in August.”

SNE-6 was drilled by the Stena DrillMAX drillship, which is moving to the site of the FAN South exploration well. Located about 20 km southwest of the SNE-3 well at a water depth of about 2,175 m, Cairn said “FAN South is targeting a mean prospective resource of more than 110 MMbbl with dual prospects: an Upper Cretaceous stacked multilayer channelized turbidite fan prospect and a Lower Cretaceous base of slope turbidite fan prospect, which is equivalent to the FAN-1 2014 oil discovery.”