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Kosmos Energy Ltd. (KOS)

Q1 2017 Earnings Call· Mon, May 8, 2017

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day everyone. Welcome to Kosmos Energy's First Quarter 2017 Conference Call. Just a reminder, today's call is being recorded. At this time, let me turn the call over to Neal Shah, Vice President of Finance and Treasurer at Kosmos Energy.

Neal Shah

Management

Thank you, operator and thanks all of you for joining us today. This morning, we issued our releases regarding our first quarter earnings as well as the Yakaar-1 well results, which are available on the Investors page of the kosmosenergy.com website. We anticipate filing our 10-Q for the first quarter of 2017 with the SEC later today. Joining me on the call today are Andy Inglis, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Brian Maxted, Chief Exploration Officer; and Tom Chambers, Chief Financial Officer. Before we get started, I'd like to mention that this conference call includes certain forward-looking statements based on our current expectations. The risks associated with the forward-looking statements have been outlined in our earnings release and in our SEC filings. We may also refer to certain the non-GAAP financial measures in our discussion. Management believes such measures are important in looking at the Company's historical and future performance and these are commonly referred to industry metrics. These measures are provided in addition to and should be read in conjunction with, information contained in our financial statements prepared in accordance with GAAP and included in our SEC filings. At this time I’ll turn the call over to Andy.

Andrew Inglis

Management

Thanks Neal and good morning everyone. Kosmos is off to a strong start in 2017 and we have been diligently executing our plans to achieve the financial and operational objectives we set out at the beginning of the year. In summary, strengthen our financial position and deliver explorations success. During the first quarter, we continued to generate free cash flow and delivered on our promise to reduce leverage, paying down $150 million of debt. We're on track to generate $250 million of free cash flow in 2017 at just $50 per barrel, we remain one of the few E&P companies generating significant free cash flow, keeping Kosmos in a solid financial position. Operationally our work in Mauritania and Senegal is off to a strong, building on the positive momentum created by the BP transaction. I work grows on the development of Tortue is making good progress, enjoying the course that we achieved several important milestone. In late March, we started our second phase of exploration drilling ahead of schedule on what is one of the highest impact exploration programs in the industry over the next 18 months. With a positive result in Yakaar we announced this morning, we've maintained our 100% exploration success rate and are now six for six in the basin. Importantly, we are at the front-end of an exciting multi well, multi basin and exploration program. As I go to my remarks today, I’ll provide an update on our Ghana operation and then discuss our progress in Mauritania and Senegal. At point, I’ll hand the call over to Brian, who will provide additional details on the Yakaar-1 well and its positive implication for the rest of the basin. Lastly, Tom will review the financial results of the quarter and our solid financial position. Turning to Ghana, which…

Brian Maxted

Management

Thanks, Andy. As Andy mentioned our second phase exploration program off-shore Mauritania and Senegal, which is designed to define and test the detached basin floor fan fairways of the airport protection petroleum system is progressing well. Indeed Kosmos together with our partner BP is leading the industry and exploring this emerging deepwater theme along the Atlantic margins, so obviously an giant and supergiant prospects. Acquisition of our 3D seismic surveys is now complete and the data at various stages of processing. In March, we spud the Yakaar-1 the first in a series of four independent wells that we plan to drill through the first quarter of 2018. I’ll first discuss the Yakaar-1 results, as one of the recent 3D seismic interpretation findings. I’ll then discuss their exploration implications specifically and respectively in regard to the further derisking and increasing hydrocarbon potential of the basin floor fan fairways, including further north in Senegal, a long trend in Mauritania. As a reminder, Yakaar-1 was designed test the lake Cretaceous space in floor fan approximately 50 kilometers west of the Teranga-1 gas discovery. The fan comprises a series of extensive amalgamated channelized sending any reservoir systems that will seal in formationally and trap those as very graphically structurally as well as charge from a deeper build Cretaceous Neocomian-Valanginian source. As Andy mentioned Yakaar is a significant gas discovery. The well encountered a gross 120 meter or 394 feet hydrocarbon column, which includes 45 meters or 148 feet of net pay. The reservoir comprises three stacked high quality channel sands with excellent porosity and permeability. Gas water contact was encountered in the lower zone. The reservoirs which are ample supported extend over a very large area, approximately 280 square kilometer in size. Most likely Pmean resource is estimated at 15 Tcf, which volumetrically met…

Tom Chambers

Management

Thank you Brian and good morning everyone. A positive free cash flow trend continues into 2017 and Kosmos remains focused on improving our already solid balance sheet and maintaining our liquidity. At the beginning of the year, we announced our plan to generate approximately $250 million of free cash flow based on a $50 Brent price and to you use these funds to pay down debt and build liquidity. We're delivering on that promise having paid down $150 million of debt through the end of March and a further $50 million to the end of April. And are well on our track to reduce our overall net to debt to approximately $900 million by the end of the year. At the end of the quarter we have $1.3 billion in total corporate liquidity, including capacity on our RBL and RCF facilities, as well as available cash. During the quarter, we completed the semiannual redetermination of our borrowing base, which as expected resulted in a decrease of approximately $150 million to $1.3 billion. The new borrowing base which is effective April 1, reduces total liquidity to $1.2 billion. The reduction in RBL capacity is driven by the remaining production of the lone life under the facility, but is more than sufficient for us to run the business. While at the same time, reducing undrawn commitment fees and associated interest expense. That said we plan to extend our facility and add back that liquidity prior to March of 2018, the period in which amortization of the current facility commences. Now I’ll turn to the results for the quarter. We finished the quarter with two crude oil liftings both from Jubilee in line with our guidance given on the year-end call. This generated first quarter 2017 oil revenues of $103 million, excluding $11…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes a line of Bob Morris with Citi. Please state your question.

Bob Morris

Analyst

Thank you. Congratulation, Andy, Brian and team on Yakaar discovery. As pleased to see that you’re going to move next after the drill stem test to, what is purely black oil prospect. But as you come back and look at the Requin prospects there, you've already discovered about 20 Tcf of gas, you highlighted the reasons why you have a lower condensate to gas ratio there. But two parts to my question, one at what point do you say look we've already discovered enough gas and as we look at all the LNG projects coming on in the world when is enough gas and do we continue that there may be shift to oil prospects as we identify those, post Hippocampe prospect. And then two, I thought I recall you last quarter saying you needed CGR ratio of about 50 barrels per million cubic foot to be economic. So, I guess my question now is with where his CGR is today. What would be the breakeven natural gas price so to speak to move forward with development of these projects or for future projects if you do make more gas discoveries here?

Andrew Inglis

Management

Yeah, I’ll take the second one first, Bob and then Brian will come back to the exploration program and our objective of targeting liquids as we get all. I think in terms of Yakaar, I think you should see it as a second LNG hub in Senegal. Yakaar with Teranga is probably around 20 Tcf of resource and as you say it’s sufficient to underpin a world scale LNG project. So I think it is an LNG stream with the condensate flow rather than being a liquids recycling project. We see similar economics with Tortue versus and a Teranga, a Yakaar I think to be cost competitive today, a $5 per Mcf, FOB is the target. Clearly there’s a lot more work to be done on the Yakaar and Teranga to level that. But as we look at the scale of the resource that there is there, it’s actually advantage from the scale perspective. It has similar reservoirs to Tortue and therefore comes with high deliverability wells. So further appraisal at the Yakaar required now, but fundamentally the target there in terms of being a cost competitive use source is no different. So that answers, I think your second question and if I just go to Brian for the first question, which was about what are your plans targeting liquids and oil as go north in Mauritania?

Brian Maxted

Management

Yeah, thanks, Andy. Good morning Bob. I think the first point to note is that we’re still very, very early on in this exploration campaign and to open this frontier base enough. This is 2,100 Gulf Mexico block, so it's a very big area. But as we drill wells, we now about six in the ground. We’re beginning to slowly understand the area and the first point I would make is to your point to be honest, is that northern Senegal clearly is a giant gas resource area for us. We've now made, you include Tortue three discoveries, out of three in Northern Senegal in the two blocks. And Requin Tigre, which is a 60 Tcf prospect that's been further derisked by Yakaar-1 significantly, remains undrilled. So, a giant gas resource in that area, but to your point, we are focused on funding oil and liquids. And that's one of the reasons from a play standpoint that we’re moving further north. I think we started to understand the petroleum system in good detail in Northern Senegal. We still have very little understanding in northern Mauritania where we've got limited number of penetrations. So, Hippocampe it’s located in the northern part of Block C8, it’s actually 225 kilometers away from Yakaar. It gives you a sense of the scale of the space. And if you’re putting a well down there it's going to help us better understand the presence of source rocks, the quality, their maturity, their timing of migration et cetera, which will start to allow it to get a really good handle on how the petroleum system is working up there and more important and as importantly. The nature of the contribution from the two shallow resource rocks, the Albian and the CT, which we haven't yet tested because in the wells that we drilled, the CT and Albian has always been immature or at best very marginal mature for the Albian. So, that's one reason, this mixing of the shall hydrocarbons with the deeper hydrocarbons we think is going to give us a good chance of finding liquids to the north. Deeper count though won’t be definitive, it's one of a number of prospects in northern Mauritania. We’ve previously talked about Lamantin been our best chance for oil. That area in general northern C8, C6, C12, we believe it's got a good opportunity to find liquids and oil and the explorations program is going to shift to that area for the first test we believe would hit account at this point.

Bob Morris

Analyst

Great now it makes sense and again congratulations, just very quickly, but the first LNG train down south coming on 2021 what would be the date or timing second LNG train?

Andrew Inglis

Management

Well, I think it's a little early to say, Bob. But I think it’s sort of several years later. I just because they probably to work, who would be required So, I think it's probably in middle of the next decade.

Bob Morris

Analyst

Okay. Great. Thanks a lot and we’ll seen you on Wednesday in Boston.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Ed Westlake with Credit Suisse. Please state your question.

Ed Westlake

Analyst · Credit Suisse. Please state your question.

Yes, good morning and congrats on the discovery. Just on Hippocampe really small question, start with on timing, obviously you’ve done the DST, when do you think you’d be able to get on to be drill ready for that?

Andrew Inglis

Management

Yeah some time around, late third quarter, August timeframe at the moment is the thinking.

Ed Westlake

Analyst · Credit Suisse. Please state your question.

For spudding?

Andrew Inglis

Management

Yeah, spudding, yeah, yeah. A little early or mid third or fourth quarter when we get down.

Ed Westlake

Analyst · Credit Suisse. Please state your question.

Right. And then, if maybe one for Tom on financial capacity, and obviously you’ve got the liquidity, you've got cash on the balance sheet, the CapEx this year is low and you’ve got the carry. But success breeds spending, which is a good thing, but you’re going to be spending across Mauritania, Senegal plus São Tomé, plus Suriname. So, maybe just a talk of plus obviously at some point starting to put money into a development less the carry of the LNG system. So, I don’t know if you at the point got a sort of a range of capital spend that you might see in say, 2019 or maybe some general comments about managing liquidity?

Tom Chambers

Management

That’s a good question, Ed. It’s a little bit too early to talk about capital spend. We’ve just had the first well at Yakaar-1 down and we’ve got three more to go this year and then Suriname in 2018, so suffice it to say though that we’re obviously looking forward and then doing some forward planning on the ability to continue to develop these successes. But a little too early right now to disclose any detailed plans.

Andrew Inglis

Management

Yeah Ed, what I’d add is that clearly we have the BP transaction, we support DD&A expand in 2017 and a good piece of 2018 depending on the follow-on exploration success we will have in Mauritania and Senegal. So, and then of course the development study, as development is slow too, it’s sort of around $2 billion through to first gas. So, the carry is 533, so therefore, we are well supported in that in terms of the development. So, I think the good news is of course, though, we’ve build the raise from balance sheet ahead of success, then we actually did the BP deal to ensure that at a sort of 30% operating interest we could carry on with the program. So, I feel good about how the strength of the balance sheet through 2017 and 2018. The ability for us to be fully, apart 30% through Tortue. Then, obviously we have options and the further success on how we would manage that in 2019. But I see this as an opportunity not a problem.

Ed Westlake

Analyst · Credit Suisse. Please state your question.

Helpful clarification, and just one small one. Do you think Yakaar, Teranga will be suitable for the same sort of development idea where you do a near shore sort of floating LNG system. I don’t know what the shore line looks like down at that point. I mean, obviously, it’s close to Dakar, which might be good for power stations.

Andrew Inglis

Management

Yeah, what I’d say, again, early days. I think the thing that I would add probably in contextual sense is that, as Brian said, we kind of announce the blocks in Senegal and Saint Louis and Cayar, I think to be gas. And similar to Tortue, similar to Teranga, similar to Yakaar, that’s clearly more gas exploration to be done, which would be the giant Requin MT growth for our prospect. So, I think what you're going to see is we're going to come to that well, is the last well in our four well contain, which we’ll drill sort of, early 2018 I think. I think when you got out that well down, you'll be able to look at the total resource there and it may result in a sort of different long-term approach, which may be an onshore scheme actually. Why you got early gas established the market through the Tortue development and then you come back to a larger scheme, that’s scalable. So, I think its early days, but I think what we have to think about really with the government of Senegal is that we have a large resource there and how do we most effectively develop that both the sort of near term objective as early gas, which is to Tortue versus a long-term objective about a potentially sort of world scale resource and what the right development scheme for that.

Ed Westlake

Analyst · Credit Suisse. Please state your question.

Congratulation. I caught about in time.

Andrew Inglis

Management

Yeah, you did. Thanks, Ed.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Richard Tullis with Capital One Securities. Please state your question.

Richard Tullis

Analyst · Capital One Securities. Please state your question.

Thanks. Good morning to everyone congratulations as well. Looking at the liquids component in Yakaar. Andy could you review the potential approach be it related to that from the BP form-out agreement and how should we look at that piece of the puzzle?

Andrew Inglis

Management

Well, Richard, I think is a little early, okay. We know to be clear, we have great preliminary result from NBTs. So, until we get the actual lab results then I think it would be wrong to speculate, so I will have a confirmed actual CGR later. I believe that it's in the range of what we’ve experienced today, i.e. no different. And then I think when we have that, we can then model it and give you the flow-through. Look, we going to condensate stream from Tortue, that clearly be a condensate stream from the development of Yakaar and Teranga and that will be contribute, there will be a contribution from the royalty that we have under the BP agreement. But to quantify it today, I think is a little early, I think you need to give us a bit more time to work that.

Richard Tullis

Analyst · Capital One Securities. Please state your question.

No, that’s fair. I appreciate that. Once the if those decision is announced, when could the group resume drilling at TEN and possibly even look to raise the production outlook from there?

Andrew Inglis

Management

Well, I think Richard you'll see the group actually getting back to drilling fairly quickly. So, I think we’re obviously making plans around that eventuality now. But as you know the rig market is quite accessible today in terms the ability to get rates. So, I think you'll find it moving quite quickly.

Richard Tullis

Analyst · Capital One Securities. Please state your question.

Okay. And then just lastly, how long do you expect the Tortue drilled stem test to take?

Andrew Inglis

Management

We have it in the program at the moment, sort of being around 75 day program, it’s quite longer than the current well programs, we tell that its about 60 days for each of the wells in the program around 75 days for the drill stem test.

Richard Tullis

Analyst · Capital One Securities. Please state your question.

Okay. Well, thanks very much. That’s all for me.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Anish Kapadia with Tudor Pickering, Holt and Company. Please state your question.

Anish Kapadia

Analyst · Tudor Pickering, Holt and Company. Please state your question.

First question is really on the kind of state of the market. We saw recently Exxon and Mozambique, they implied gross value for books, so they went into a very first $11 billion for an LNG development. So, just trying to seeing, how do you see the effective landscape in Senegal and Mauritania how that changed over roughly kind of last 12 months? And how it actually changed since the BP deal?

Andrew Inglis

Management

Well, look, Anish, I think what our business model is about, we go in the frontier basin is early. They were before the industry spotted it. So they get rich positions and Brian described to you the size of the acreage position we have. Clearly with a successes we've had it's become actually very competitive and we’ve recently seen an announcement where Total have gained the block in Senegal. The acreage is now, the basin is now being derisked and then that clearly makes it more competitive. So, we welcome new entrants, which is great, we have the second super major in Senegal, as well as, BP which I think illustrates the quality of the of the acreage of the industry sees that. I would anticipate similar things occurring in Mauritania, the good news for the Kosmos of course, is that we were in there first. We've got the great position and we captured what we believe is the core of the basin. But I do think your observation, the flow of IOCs coming is a demonstration the quality of the acreage.

Anish Kapadia

Analyst · Tudor Pickering, Holt and Company. Please state your question.

Thanks and second question on Suriname. Say it sounds like from the comments earlier on the call, encouraged by both of recent well results, both positive and the negative one. It sounds to me like your prospects grilled ready and alignment. So, I was just wondering, what was, and I suppose what’s the kind bottleneck or the hold up in terms of you accelerating drilling on your prospects in Suriname.

Andrew Inglis

Management

Yeah, again, great question I'll hand it over to Brian.

Brian Maxted

Management

Yeah, hi, Anish. Yeah, it’s not quite already is the answer. We have the very early, processing products, interpretation products from the 3D. But as we’ve mentioned on these calls, in recent quarters we’re really encouraged because if we unto gets better on 3D and that’s not actually what we’re seeing. The AVO volumes actually I've just very recently come in in-house. They themselves incredibly encouraging as well, but it's all got to be put together and the prospects of mature take much of the rest of this year to do that. We were very encouraged by the offset drilling. We all went down dip all of the channel system that stepped it there by Kolibrie we’re at the base of the slope, and where our long trend directly from the recent Exxon Mobil discoveries in the same kind of fairway. So, with those two calibrations that we can compare against the AVO that we're seeing and on our key prospects that's what gives us the, I guess, is the added confidence that what we're dealing with here are very strongly supported seismically, supported AVO prospects. In terms of the rest the timing, in Suriname, we have one block with Chevron at 50/50 and we have a second block with Chevron and Hess where we’re a third. So, the challenge for us beyond the definition of the prospectivity is to bring the alignment of the partnership. Show that we can make sure these prospects stand today on the shelve for too long. But get drilled obviously, they’re very strategic to Kosmos, where quickly in an oil province is Suriname. That's obviously important to us so, and given the scale of the prospects, which are multi hundred million barrel prospects we are very excited by what we’re seeing.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Neil Mehta with Goldman Sachs. Please state your question.

Neil Mehta

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Please state your question.

Hi good morning team. The first question is just around Jubilee. Can you just talk about your production expectations for Jubilee for the balance of this year and then into 2018 as well.

Andrew Inglis

Management

Yes good morning Neil. We’re targeting production there it was around 58,000 barrels a day, eight [ph] cargoes.

Neil Mehta

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Please state your question.

I know they are obviously issues last year, but can we just talk about how the ramp that’s going in term of getting the asset back to full capacity?

Andrew Inglis

Management

Is that Jubilee okay.

Neil Mehta

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Please state your question.

Yes Jubilee.

Andrew Inglis

Management

In Jubilee, we've actually progressed the repair of the spread mooring of the turret with the spread mooring. We now have the tugs that we're holding it on station have now departed, so we have the vessels turn more. That obviously provides stability in the current in the configuration. We still are using the shuttle tankers to off load the crude. And we’re seeing an improvement there for in the operating performance we sort of underpin the number that I gave you.

Neil Mehta

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Please state your question.

That’s great. And congrats again. 6 for 6 [ph] is great and rare in exploration. But I want to go back to I guess the first question that was asked that just up the global gas macro and just how are you thinking about that piece of the business that the market appears to be well supplied for the foreseeable future. And so how do you think about this discovery, that Yakaar discovery and the context of a market where there is a lot of supply out there?

Andrew Inglis

Management

Yes look at, I mean it’s very interesting. I’d say two things really. The first is the world is looking for a lighter hydrocarbon and we can see all the super majors lightening their barrel. BP have an objective, Total has a similar objective, Exxon has a similar objective. You see now Exxon actually make string of gas acquisitions, P&G now in Mozambique. So I actually think gas is valued today and it’s valued for the long-term. And what we’re seeing is the quality gas is what actually distinguishes one gas resource from another. And so you are right plenty the gas around, as growing gas demand. The gas that will get to market is the low cost gas. And we believe both in Tortue, and now in Yakaar and Teranga we have gas that is very cost competitive. It’s frontend of the cost cure. And that’s the important point here is that in the quality of the reservoirs that we have, the scale of production that are going to come from those wells are very innovative development solution, that’s cost effective because this is at the right at the front of the cost curve. And we have a development partner in BP now that can absolutely develop and deliver that and it has the marketing skills to make that that gas gets to market. They were the buyer of the of the energy. So you put all that together and you are very positive about the gas story, but it’s about the quality of the resource, the simplicity of the partnerships, the right skills and development and the right marketing. And I think we have a partnership and the resource that absolutely has all of the attributes.

Neil Mehta

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Please state your question.

That’s great. The last question from me is around hedging. The curve obviously has come down in the back end of 2018 and 2019 but is your approach to hedging to take more for pro rata approach? Or you just sort of hedge into the curve or will you take a more tactical approach to hedging? Just can you talk about the strategy around blocking and barrel?

Tom Chambers

Management

I’ll answer that. Over business is worth $50 a barrel. And what we’re doing is making sure that we’re hedged to ensure that we can execute give that outcome. And so in essence we are hedging a significant proportion of our barrels to ensure that we have the flow at $50 and we’ll continue to do that.

Neil Mehta

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Please state your question.

That’s great. Thanks for the time. Congrats again.

Tom Chambers

Management

Right thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Pavel Molchanov with Raymond James & Associates. Please state your question.

Pavel Molchanov

Analyst · Raymond James & Associates. Please state your question.

Thanks for taking the question guys. You’ve given some indicative economics for the first phase of the LNG project, you said, I think, sub-$5 kind of breakeven. What assumptions for fiscal terms does that assume? And maybe you can’t be very specific, but I suppose have you finalized with both the Senegal side and the Mauritania side what the fiscal terms on the LNG development look like?

Andrew Inglis

Management

Yes Pavel. I think the great news with both of the PACs that we in both countries that have an anticipated gas than have the fiscal terms of gas.

Pavel Molchanov

Analyst · Raymond James & Associates. Please state your question.

Okay, understood. Then a small housekeeping item, exploration expense in Q1 $100 million, obviously relatively high number, by historical standards. What’s kind of the run rate that you would anticipate for the rest of the year given your lower CapEx in particular?

Andrew Inglis

Management

Yes Tom do you want to do that?

Tom Chambers

Management

Can you just kind of remind – I’m sorry Pavel can you repeat the question for me real quick?

Pavel Molchanov

Analyst · Raymond James & Associates. Please state your question.

Yes, sure, exploration expense in Q1 $100 million which is relatively high quarterly number. I'm guessing it's not going to stay that high for the rest of year, but any thoughts on what you would anticipate for Q2, Q3, Q4?

Tom Chambers

Management

Yes Q2, Q3, Q4 is kind of as we’ve guided it will be – we’ll have some seismic expense in some typical G&G expense. So that will be in the $20 million range. The first quarter was a big one with the rig stacking and the rig cancelation catch up payments, so those are behind us now and so it should be just normal G&G expense going forward.

Pavel Molchanov

Analyst · Raymond James & Associates. Please state your question.

Right, appreciate it guys.

Andrew Inglis

Management

I’d like to follow-up on that. Pavel, I mean, from a exploration point, given the six for six on the exploration field at the moment [indiscernible] we are doing it on the seismic. And we’re obviously a bit on G&G as well. But that said, most of our major seismic programs are in place this year and early next. But $100 million a year is about what we are trying to run this business at for the exploration expense, or exploration spend, notwithstanding [indiscernible].

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Nikola Kouzmanov with Jefferies. Please state your question.

Nikola Kouzmanov

Analyst · Jefferies. Please state your question.

Good morning gentlemen. In preparations on Yakaar, this morning. Two questions on that, I suppose, and a question on Jubilee. I know you've already referred some of it. On Yakaar, in timing around appraisal and if you're going to be looking to sort of delineate the gas discovery, we’re going to look for potentially more liquid zone within that 220 area of discovery? And then if it's an onshore development supposed to be big development, do you expect the economic threshold of 50 CGR to decrease from the price that I’m not thinking just in terms of Yakaar, but also Requin-Tigre? And then on Jubilee, the operator talked about you are talking about a 12-week shutdown for the final spread mooring but that's going to take place in 2017. How does this impact your guidance on the eight cargoes and if there is any impact actually? Thank you.

Andrew Inglis

Management

Right thanks Niki. I think just in terms of appraisal timing, I think our objective going forward in terms of the drilling program is the DST and then the three tests: Hippocampe ; currently, Lamantin; and then Requin-Tigre. I think we want to drill Requin-Tigre, it'll be an important sort of further test of the outboard system in Senegal. It will allow us to understand, I think, the basin floor fan setting there from a gas perspective. I think with that knowledge, it will then come back, the appraisal of Teranga and Yakaar. It'll take us a while to get through all the well result to fully understand Yakaar and develop the appraisal programs. So I think appraisal will actually occur in 2018. So next year. Then back to the onshore or the potential for onshore in Senegal. Our view of the basin today, and obviously, it could change with the Requin-Tigre's result is, its big gas and with big prospects, in particular Requin-Tigre to drill. If it is successful, that's enough gas to drive a large onshore scheme. In terms of economics, I think it's early to speculate. I think I do have a personal view on it, which is there's something about small is beautiful. And with the Tortue development, we're using a very innovative approach by using a very innovative approach by using a standard industry solution: design one, build many. We're driving through standardization. We're driving cost effectiveness into a small scheme. I think the approach to the onshore if we do an onshore development, it will be very much aligned around that thinking, where we need to ensure we're standardized, we're not stick building, and we develop something which has scale and efficiency. So I think, again, I believe we have something which is cost-competitive really because of the quality of the reservoir, the big gas rates, et cetera. And then finally, on Jubilee, I think its early days. We've clearly done the work to stabilize the turret by removing the tugs and doing the mooring. There's further work to be done now, which the partnership is conducting as to whether the vessel needs to be rotated and when. And that work is ongoing, but we feel that our view of 8 cargoes is our best view of the future.

Nikola Kouzmanov

Analyst · Jefferies. Please state your question.

Okay thank you. Thank you very much.

Andrew Inglis

Management

Alright, great. Thanks Niki.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And your last question comes from the line of Al Stanton with RBC Capital Markets. Please state your question.

Al Stanton

Analyst

Good afternoon. I'll be quick actually. So just two questions on the exploration campaign. First of all, 75 days for a well test. I mean, what should we see as a good result for Tortue drill center?

Andrew Inglis

Management

I think the first result in test is sort of twofold. What we're trying to do is actually get some liquids, some gas to surface, so that we know exactly the fluid composition we're dealing with. We need to have the basis of design for the LNG facilities. So in essence, we're looking at fluid sampling. And then the second thing we're looking at is just well deliverability so that we can optimize the well design. But I don't think there's a big piece of information to come from the reservoir. It's really underpinning the basis of design to ensure that we've got the right fluid characteristics, and we've got the right well designed.

Al Stanton

Analyst

And then is there a bond burning rate that you would require?

Andrew Inglis

Management

No I think these are very productive wells Al. We’ve talked about wells that are very high rate. And so what we're doing is ultimately ensuring we've got the right well design in terms of completion type rather than fundamentally saying we need a particular rig.

Al Stanton

Analyst

And then finally, you talking about Requin-Tigre extending into January. So is that a hint of a rig extension or second phase of drilling with a different rig?

Andrew Inglis

Management

Well the Requin-Tigre extending into January.

Al Stanton

Analyst

Okay.

Andrew Inglis

Management

And our rig contract ends in November.

Al Stanton

Analyst

Yes.

Andrew Inglis

Management

I can’t speculate beyond that. Yes.

Al Stanton

Analyst

Yes I will then okay.

Andrew Inglis

Management

That will be inappropriate to do that.

Al Stanton

Analyst

Okay thank you.

Andrew Inglis

Management

Alright thanks Al.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. There are no further questions at the this time. I would like to turn the floor back over to Neal Shah for closing comments.

Neal Shah

Management

Thank you, operator. We appreciate all of you joining us on the call today and your interest in Kosmos. If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to contact me. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. And thank you for your participation.