Cairn drills second well at Ravva
Cairn Energy has begun drilling the second of its six-well programme at Ravva, using rig Hercules 31 from Hercules Offshore.
Cairn wants to finish the campaign of five development wells and one appraisal well by the middle of next year to maintain Ravva plateau production at 50,000 b/d. In October, Hercules 31 completed the first development well, which is under testing.
PETROWATCH learns Hercules 31 (earlier called Odin Spirit) might later be used to follow up some exploratory leads at Ravva. We have an extension option for the rig, says a source.
This will be used for the exploratory drilling. Rahul Dhir, Cairn CEO told investors in Delhi on 9th December that when Cairn acquired Ravva seven years ago the field was producing 4000 b/d but that production was raised to 40,000 b/d within two years.
At the time it was believed that Ravva only had 100m barrels recoverable, said Dhir. But it is still producing and Cairn has already recovered 200m barrels.