Cairn encouraged by Senegal offshore well

Edinburgh-based Cairn Energy has announced “encouraging” preliminary results of its exploration well off the coast of Senegal.

The company said the results ofthesnenorth-1exploration well “encountered oil and gas in the primary objective and oil in the deeper secondary objective”, separately from the SNE field.

“Further work is being undertaken to establish the potential commerciality of this discovery”, Cairn said yesterday. It said the initial result had “positive implications for further hydrocarbon potential”.

Simon Thomson, chief executive of Cairn Energy, said:”the SNE North well results are encouraging in terms of further prospectivity and implications for the full block potential offshore Senegal.”

He said the company was “delighted (with) a safe and successful drilling programme” in the African country this year.