CAIRN Energy has been voted one of the world’s top 10 explorers by global oil and gas industry leaders.
Edinburgh-based Cairn ranked ninth in a listing of the most-admired exploration firms compiled by Wood Mackenzie following a survey of senior industry figures.
The result provides recognition from Cairn’s peers for the company’s success with the drill bit off Senegal where it has made huge finds in an area that had been largely ignored.
Cairn rubs shoulders with some of the industry’s biggest names in the top 10, ranking one place above BP.
The list is headed by Italian major Eni with ExxonMobil and Shell placed fourth and seventh respectively.
America’s Kosmos, which made a big gas find off Senegal, is one of five independents on the list. It ranked third.
However the survey findings indicate the kind of frontier exploration pursued by Cairn and Kosmos has fallen out of a favour amid the crude price plunge.
Wood Mackenzie said with exploration budgets under pressure, conventional exploration and increased recovery from existing assets are the top resource capture options.
“The short term focus remains in mature basins for high margin low cost and near field prospects away from deepwater and frontier basins,” noted Edinburgh-based Wood Mackenzie.
This may bode well for the North Sea, where some firms have highlighted the potential to make finds and to develop new fields close to existing assets.
BP said last month it planned to drill up to five exploration wells in the UK in coming months.
Yesterday foreign-owned Repsol Sinopec said it had started production from the Cayley field 120 miles east of Aberdeen.
This is linked to revamped production facilities used for the Montrose field, which returned to production in May.
The Montrose Area Redevelopment (MAR) is expected to allow Repsol Sinopec to extend the lives of the fields already linked to the facility and to bring undeveloped discoveries on stream.
Welcoming the start of production from Cayley, the company said: “With the support of our shareholders and our partner Marubeni we have overcome significant technical and legacy challenges to safely maximise economic recovery from these historic fields and facilities. We can now look forward to hub production from Montrose for another 15 years.”
The plan for the redevelopment was adapted following the steep fall in the oil price that started in 2014.
Repsol of Spain and Sinopec of China expect to make good money in the North Sea with Brent Crude trading at around $50 per barrel.
Led by chief executive Simon Thomson, Cairn expects to use funds generated from North Sea production to support drilling around the world.
Repsol Sinopec has a 58.97 per cent interest in the MAR cluster. Japan’s Marubeni has the remainder.
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