Australian energy company FAR Ltd. said it bet heavily on offshore Senegal, though revenue year-on-year was lower by more than 50 percent.
FAR is focusing the bulk of its spending and exploration efforts on emerging basins off the coast of West Africa. The company said in a report on the first half of 2016 that exploration and evaluation assets increased by around 60 percent to $96.8 million, which it said reflected the funding for four appraisals wells offshore Senegal.
With contingent resources of around 200 million barrels of oil, the company last week said the SNE oil field met the minimum threshold to be considered commercial. Envisioning a floating production storage and offloading concept, FAR said it estimates a peak production rate of 140,000 barrels of oil per day from the SNE field.
In its latest assessment, the International Monetary Fund said the economy in Senegal was stable with a growth rate of around 6 percent expected. Both inflation and the budget deficit are expected to remain at levels supportive of economic expansion.
Senegal has yet to pay off for FAR, however. The company reported first-half revenue was down 66 percent and losses for the period were down 16 percent from the same period last year. Higher costs were attributed to the drilling campaign offshore Senegal.
FAR said it expects to start Senegalese oil production by early next decade.
