Woodside and Cairn eye Senegal FID by middle of next year

Woodside Petroleum, the operator of the SNE field offshore Senegal, in which Cairn Energy owns a 40% working interest, expects to make a final investment decision on the project in mid-2019.

On Monday, ASX-listed Woodside and joint venture partners, including London-listed Cairn and the Senegal national oil company, agreed to begin agreed to front-end engineering design activities after appointing a subsea engineering contractor.

This process was set in motion by the Senegalese minister of petroleum and energies of approving Woodside as operator of the project and the Rufisque Offshore, Sangomar Offshore and Sangomar Deep Offshore joint venture’s development and exploitation plan.

“We plan to progress the SNE development towards the earliest possible commercialisation of the discovered resources," said Woodside boss Peter Coleman. "Completing FEED activities will be a key enabler of a final investment decision."

He added: “As part of FEED activities, the RSSD joint venture will continue working with the Government of Senegal, local communities and our contractors to realise the potential opportunities and benefits from this nationally significant development.”

Senegal’s first major oil project, SNE's first phase of the development will target an estimated 230m barrels of oil resources from the lower, less complex reservoirs and an initial phase in the upper reservoirs.

A floating production storage and offloading vessel is expected to have a capacity of around 100,000 bbl/day, with first oil production targeted in 2022.