SNE partners buy FPSO

Cairn and FAR have announced a material increase in the capex for the SNE development from USD2.2 billion to USD3.7 billion (plus USD500 million contingency) for Phase 1. This has been driven by the partners' decision to buy an FPSO rather than lease it. This does however bring the opex down, estimated form c.USD14/boe to c.USD11/boe.

FID is expected to be taken at the end of 2019 with first oil forecast for late 2022. The development will be phased with Phase 1 targeting 230mmbbl and production of 100mbopd. Phase 2 will target a further 253mmbbl oil.

This is a particularly tough week for Cairn having earlier announced a dry hole in Mexico at Alom-1 and the Indian arbitration award delayed into summer 2020, while now also being exposed to larger capex on SNE.

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Tortue unitisation across Mauritania and Senegal

The governments of Mauritania and Senegal have signed an Inter-Governmental Cooperation Agreement in another step forward for the Tortue gas development which straddles the border of the two countries. The field will now be unitised with an initial split of resources 50:50 and a mechanism for future equity redeterminations based on actual production and other technical data.

FID of the field remains on track, targeting year end 2018 with first gas in 2021. The BP-led joint venture is looking at a near-shore FLNG concept which will reduce costs significantly.

The unitised ownership will be BP 61% operator, Kosmos 29%, and government partners retaining the remaining 10%.

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Kosmos' end of a winning streak with dry well at Requin Tigre

Kosmos Requin Tigre prospect was announced dry this morning. This was a "make it" well that had the potential to add 60bcf of gas in the Senegal/Mauritania trend and would have increased total gas discovered in the basin to over 100tcf. However, this dry well constrains Kosmos' growth in the basin with no further exploration drilling in area for now. The drillship will now proceed to test two oil prospects offshore Suriname commencing in early Q2 2018.

With three dry wells in a row, Requin Tigre, Hippocampe and Lamantin (the last two targeting liquids), Kosmos shine as an exploration company is now wearing off. It now follows in the footsteps of other E&Ps such as Tullow, which was once an exploration-led company but increasingly focussed on delivering on its projects and commercialising an inventory of discoveries.

For now, it appears that Kosmos' West African story is finished.

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