Falkland Islands-focused explorer Borders and Southern Petroleum has reaffirmed the size of the potential in its Darwin gas and condensate discovery in the South Atlantic after working on two combined seismic studies.

A second phase of reservoir engineering on two sets of 3-D data combined from surveys undertaken in 2008 and 2013 to provide a total volume covering an area of more than 2,500 sq km (965 sq miles) point to a base case estimate of 2.6 Tcf of wet gas-in-place at Darwin with 263 MMbbl of recoverable condensate.

At the same time the company is still on the lookout for a farm-in partner for its acreage in the Southern Falklands Basin, and it is also working on a further exploration and appraisal campaign which is planned by other Falkland explorers in 2015.

“Based on this new data and our Phase 2 reservoir engineering study, in June of this year we reported that our estimated most likely recoverable resource for Darwin (East and West combined) was 263 MMbbl of condensate from a wet gas-in-place estimate of 2.6 Tcf. It was also noted that this number could increase if the appraisal programme confirms additional reservoir intervals,” said B&S chief executive Howard Obee in the company’s half year report to the end of June.

Further detailed reservoir characterisation work will continue through the fourth quarter of 2014, he added.

Conceptual well designs have also been completed for an exploration and appraisal program, while logistical planning is also well advanced, with the aim of joining a drilling consortium once partner funding has been obtained.

Darwin was discovered in April 2012 with the 61/17-1 well, which encountered a good quality reservoir with 67.8 m (222 ft) of net pay and average porosity of 22% after being drilled with the Leiv Eiriksson semisubmersible rig. The find was subsequently estimated to contain around 200 MMboe of gas and condensate.