The operations included the recovery of oil and rock samples to the surface, the company said.

Last week, Woodside assessed the size of the column at eight metres and said at the time that the column was small and might not prove to be material, but the result was encouraging for future offshore Mauritanian Cretaceous exploration targets.

On Monday night, the sidetrack well was being plugged and abandoned, after which the Stena Tay drill rig will move to the Labeidna-1 exploration well site.

Located 15km southwest of the Chinguetti field, Labeidna-1 will target Miocene sands, Woodside said.