Cairn/Far
Cairn has announced that the Development and Exploitation plan for the SNE field offshore Senegal has been submitted on schedule to the Government of Senegal with approval targeted later this year. Interestingly it also announces that JV partner (subject to international arbitration) has exercised its option to become operator of the development. This is subject to Government consent but must be a very high risk strategy under the circumstances but clearly the Australian company fancy the bet and maybe even want to load more onto the court, we shall see. Either way the news is good for what is a truly huge, world class development and both Cairn and Far Limited will benefit significantly whatever happens.
Range Resources
Range has announced its quarterly activities report in which it shows average daily production of 594 b/d of oil which is still below the company’s expectations. The Beach Marcelle waterflood project expansion is underway which will increase the number of active producer and injector wells and over 50 workovers and reactivations are planned before the end of the year. The management admit to being ‘disappointed’ with the delay in the infrastructure upgrade programme and the knock-on effect it is having on the drilling programme and production in Trinidad and hope to complete the upgrades as quickly as possible. It is disappointing but there is clearly value to be unlocked in Range but shareholders are going to have to be patient yet again but despite the delay real value does look achievable in the company long term.