Kosmos To Begin Drilling 3 Super-Giant Prospects In Africa

Oil and gas exploration company, Kosmos Energy Ltd. (NYSE:KOS) recently announced that it has decided to start the drilling of three new wells offshore Senegal and Mauritania by the end of this month. This follows the gas discovery off the coast of Senegal at the beginning of 2017. The company will start spudding of its three super-giant prospects with the Hippocampe well near Senegal.

To date, Kosmos Energy has drilled six wells off the coast of West Africa, where it has found around 40 trillion cubic feet of gas equivalent (Tcfe). The company believes that along the Atlantic margin, the Mauritania-Senegal offshore belt is the largest petroleum system found in last 15 years. Backed by the new seismic data gathered by Kosmos, the company believes that the resource base it has discovered will keep growing with more drilling.

Kosmos Energy’s Drilling Plan

The company is presently working on the Yakaar-1 well offshore Senegal, where the company made a discovery in May 2017. The well with a depth of about 4,700 meters is located in the Cayar Offshore Profond block, where Kosmos has engaged the Atwood Achiever drillship.

Upon the closure of operations at the Yakaar-1 well, the company will move the drillship to Tortue-1, another Kosmos discovery, to perform a drill stem test. The company will then mobilize the Atwood Achiever drillship to drill the Hippocampe well, the first of the trio, which has 12 Tcfe gross unrisked resource potential. It is located in Block C-8, northwest and outboard of the Marsouin discovery. It has a large basin floor fan with extensive, stacked reservoirs of Cenomanian and Albian age, making it easy for Kosmos to extract. Kosmos Energy expects to begin the drilling of Hippocampe well by the end of Aug 2017.

The drillship will next move to Lamantin by the fourth quarter, the company's youngest prospect. The seismic tests have led Kosmos Energy to believe that Lamantin has black oil in its reservoir as it is from the Albian geologic timescale. Lamantin has an estimated p-mean resource size of 2-3 billion barrels of oil equivalent.

The company will reach its third prospect, Requin Tigre, by the end of 2017. It is located in northern Senegal and has 60 Tcfe gross unrisked resource potential. The prospect is from the Cenomanian geologic timescale.

We would like to inform investors that Kosmos Energy is one of the few American oil companies that have not yet planned to retreat from deep-water ventures. Most US oil producers are moving their focus on domestic shale plays. The company has made a few large oil discoveries lately.

About the Company and Zacks Rank

Kosmos Energy operates as an oil and gas exploration and production company focused on under-explored regions in Africa. The company is based in Hamilton, Bermuda.

Kosmos incurred a net loss of $8.5 million or a loss of 2 cents per share in the second quarter of 2017. In the last one month, the company has witnessed two downward estimate revisions and no upward revisions. This downtrend has pushed Kosmos Energy to a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell), indicating that it is poised to underperform in the near term.

Some better-ranked stocks in the oil and energy sector include Braskem S.A. (NYSE:BAK) , TransCanada Corporation (TO:TRP) and Range Resources Corporation (NYSE:RRC) . These sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Braskem’s sales for 2017 are expected to increase 11% year over year. The company delivered an average positive earnings surprise of 107.8% in the last four quarters.

TransCanada’s sales for the year 2017 are expected to increase 0.3% year over year. The company delivered an average positive earnings surprise of 4.1% in the last four quarters.

Range Resources’ sales for 2017 are expected to increase 124.6% year over year. The company delivered a positive earnings surprise of 250% in the second quarter of 2017.

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