Cairn Energy targets 800m barrels in second half 2019

Edinburgh-based international oil and gas exploration and production company Cairn Energy said on Friday at its AGM that it will target more than 800 million barrels of gross resource in the second half of 2019.

The work will includes six wells – three in the UK and Norway, and three in Mexico. Cairn will operate five of these wells.

Cairn Energy CEO Simon Thomson told the AGM: “Last year was the first full year of production from our two production assets in the UK North Sea.

“Between them, Catcher and Kraken generated around 17,500 barrels of oil per day (bopd) net to Cairn and around $395 million in oil and gas sales revenue.

“Group production for 2019 remains within guidance of 19,000-22,000 bopd for the first four months and an update on production performance will be provided later in the year.

“We are particularly pleased with the performance of Catcher, which is operating ahead of our expectations and where operating efficiency is excellent.

“While we have reduced our reserve estimates for Kraken, we know what needs to be done to improve the performance of the field and we are working with the operator on several initiatives designed to increase the productivity of the assets on a sustainable basis.

“We continue to progress our two home grown development projects: SNE in Senegal and Nova in Norway.

“Both projects are firmly on schedule with first oil from Nova targeted in 2021 and from SNE in 2022.

“These two development projects are an important part of our strategy in sustaining and adding to our current cash flows over the medium and long term.

“We also continue to replenish our exploration portfolio with assets that meet our stringent investment criteria.

“In 2018 this included adding a number of value-enhancing opportunities in new geographies including Suriname, Mauritania, Mexico and Côte d’Ivoire and working towards a material, exploration drilling programme in 2019 and 2020.

“Since our last reporting date, we have consolidated our position in Latin America and entered into a farm-in agreement with Equinor for a 35.1% non-operated interest in four exploration blocks offshore the Nicaragua Pacific coast ahead of a potential exploration drilling campaign in 2020.

“The farm-in enables Cairn to access high impact resource potential in a frontier location containing a range of exploration play types.

“We have a very busy exploration drilling programme in the second half of 2019 targeting more than 800 million barrels of gross resource and includes six wells – three in the UK and Norway, and three in Mexico.

“Importantly, Cairn will operate five of these wells …”