Cairn Energy plans $400m nine-well expansion programme Cairn Energy plans to drill nine exploration wells this year, as part of a $400m exploration campaign that will make 2014 the busiest year for the company in a decade. Simon Thomson, chief executive, said on Tuesday that Cairn's 2014 exploration programme would provide investors with exposure to "material growth potential" alongside mature basin development, "all against a backdrop of continued balance sheet strength." Jamie Maddock of Morgan Stanley said the programme could be "potentially transformational" for the oil explorer. Cairn, which made its name with a huge oil discovery in Rajasthan, saw its reputation for exploration success dim after failing to find commercial quantities of oil off the coast of Greenland despite spending $1bn. It is now hoping to restore its fortunes with an ambitious drilling campaign in the so-called Atlantic Margin, an area thought to have huge oil potential that stretches from west Africa to the Atlantic west of Ireland. Cairn said it would drill one well off the coast of Morocco, which has become a big draw for oil majors such as BP and Chevron in recent months, as well as two offshore Senegal and one off the coast of Ireland. It would also take part in another, non-operated well being drilled off Morocco by its partner Kosmos Energy. The group is also planning four exploration and appraisal wells in the North Sea, in Tulla, Atlas - a new prospect in which it recently acquired a 20 per cent working interest - Aragon and west of Kraken. The company also said there was significant potential to the east of Skarfjell, a big recent oil and gas discovery off Norway. Cairn said the nine planned wells would be financed through the its balance sheet. Cairn had net cash of $1.25bn at the end of last year, and its remaining 10 per cent stake in Cairn India is worth about $1bn. It also expects to be boosted by cash from its two big North Sea developments, Kraken first and then Catcher, when they come into production over the next few years. Cairn is a partner with EnQuest in the Kraken project, which recently got the go-ahead from the UK government. EnQuest said it would invest £4bn in the heavy oil development, which had been boosted by UK tax allowances designed to encourage spending on difficult-to-extract oil deposits. Cairn said first oil was expected in 2016-17, with production forecast at 50,000 barrels of oil per day - 12,500 bpd of that net to Cairn. Cairn, which returned $3.5bn to shareholders in 2012, said its programme to purchase up to $300m of shares in the group was continuing, and to date shares to the value of $42m had been repurchased, leaving about 594m still in issue. Cairn will announce its full-year 2013 results on March 18.