More reserves uncovered offshore Senegal

EDINBURGH, Scotland, April 11 (UPI) -- Scottish company Cairn Energy said it was maintaining a string of success with the latest discovery of natural gas at an evaluation program offshore Senegal.

The Scottish company and its partners confirmed a discovery offshore Senegal in the SNE field in January. Cairn said that, unlike the tough sea conditions in the North Sea or in the Gulf of Mexico, offshore West Africa may be more palatable to energy companies.

The company said Monday it confirmed natural gas and potentially oil were present in the fifth well drilled into the field.

"The drilling program in Senegal continues to provide positive evidence of the scale and extent of the SNE field," Cairn Energy Chief Executive Simon Thomson said in a statement.

Cairn's counterparts at Australia's FAR Ltd. said last year it was evaluating the potential for commercial operations in a basin said to hold at least 200 million barrels of oil off the coast of Senegal. FAR Ltd. said it's five-for-five in the region, confirming West Africa is emerging as a major new oil and gas frontier.

FAR in 2014 started a drilling program in the nearby FAN-1 deepwater basin in Senegal, which the company at the time said could be a game changer for the region.

Cairn, meanwhile, said its assets in the deep waters off the coast of Senegal could hold up to 670 million barrels of recoverable reserves