Cairn's Greenland programme has flexibility

24th May 2011 07:36

Oil and gas outfit Cairn Energy said the government of Greenland recently approved the location of seven exploration drill sites, which gives the company some flexibility in its planned 2011 programme.The company plans to drill up to four exploration wells this year, with one in each of the Atammik and Lady Franklin blocks offshore to the west of the capital Nuuk, and one in each of the Napariaq and Eqqua blocks in the southern Baffin Bay west Disko area.The four well campaign will test prospects with different structural styles and play types and is targeting a gross unrisked mean prospective resource potential of 3.2 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe) at target sub-surface depths between 2,500 and 4,750 metres.In each case the principal target is oil but evidence of both oil and gas generation is found regionally. In view of the frontier nature of the exploration and paucity of offset well information the individual prospects are estimated to have chances of success ranging from around 10% to 20%, Cairn said. The wells will be drilled in water depths ranging between 288 metres and 1,530 metres.The total cost of the drilling campaign is estimated to be in the region of $600m, in line with previous guidance."The group's strong financial position and entrepreneurial exploration focus has allowed it to build a strategic and leading early entry position in the frontier offshore basins of Greenland, which Cairn believes has the necessary geological ingredients for exploration success," said Cairn's deputy chief executive, Mike Watts. ---jh