Savannah Petroleum said Aug. 15 the company has made its fourth consecutive discovery in Niger’s Agadem Rift Basin.

The Eridal-1 well encountered an estimated 13.6 m (44.6 ft) of net oil-bearing reservoir sandstones in the E1 reservoir, the company said in a news release.

“What was different about Eridal-1 was that we were targeting a structure which had previously been drilled in a down-dip location by a previous operator. Our technical team had a strong view that significant potential existed up-dip and selected the Eridal-1 well accordingly,” Savannah Petroleum CEO Andrew Knott said in the release. “We believe this has contributed meaningful oil resource additions to support the development of our proposed EPS [early production scheme].”

The well, which was drilled by the GW 215 rig to a total measured depth of 2,542 m (8,340 ft), hit oil in the R3 portion of the R3/R4 production-sharing contract area.

“Wireline logs indicate the reservoir properties to be good quality and the available data indicates light oil consistent with Savannah’s discoveries to date, and in line with offset wells and the depth/API trend observed across the basin,” Savannah said in the release.

The well is being suspended for future reentry, and Savannah said it plans to carry out production tests later this year on at least two of the discovery wells as the company works to implement its Niger EPS.

In addition the company said it has decided to exercise the second of six individual options it has under contract with the Great Wall Drilling Co. Niger SARL for the GW 215 rig, given the successful results of the four exploration wells. The rig will now move to the Zomo-1 well site, located on the R3 portion of the R3/R4 PSC Area about 12 km (7 miles) from Eridal-1, where it will prepare to spud the Zomo-1 exploration well. The well will evaluate potential oil pay in the Eocene Sokor Alternances, Savannah said.