- Repsol says big oil fields possible offshore Cuba
- PDVSA also cites “great potential” in Cuba blocks
- Cuba says may have 20 billion barrels offshore
Jeff Franks
Reuters
4/5/2011
HAVANA, April 5 (Reuters) – Repsol YPF (REP.MC: Quote) expects to have a Chinese-built drilling rig in Cuban waters by the end of the summer and start drilling immediately into a prospective undersea oil field that looks like it could be a big one, a geologist for the Spanish oil company said on Monday.
Repsol, in a consortium with Norway’s Statoil (STL.OL: Quote) and a unit of India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corp. (ONGC.BO: Quote), plans to drill one well with the high-tech Scarabeo 9 rig and another if the first is successful, said senior structural geologist Gonzalo Zamora at Cuba’s Earth Sciences Summit in Havana.
“The perspectives are to find something, if not, we wouldn’t be drilling. And the sizes are big,” he told reporters after making a presentation at the conference that is heavily focused on Cuba’s oil and gas development.
“To drill with so much risk like we have in Cuba, we have to look for a big prospect because the investment to develop it is very big,” Zamora said…
…Venezuela’s PDVSA may also be in line to get the rig for its Cuban blocks, where areas of “great potential” have been found, PDVSA senior basin analyst Jose Noya told reporters at the conference.
He said exploratory drilling could take place “maybe in a year.”
“Once we have the equipment, it will be drilled. Probably we are in the line for drilling … with the same rig, because it is a rig that can drill in 2,000 meters [6,651.7 feet/1.24 miles] (of water),” he said of the Scarabeo 9…
The complete article is a Reuters.
