PDVSA’s Well Offshore Cuba Disappoints

Venezuela’s oil company PDVSA has decided to plug and abandon its exploration well offshore Cuba, according to Granma newspaper.

The Cabo de San Antonio 1X well, drilled by the Scarabeo 9 rig, failed to show commercial hydrocarbon volumes, but, according to Granma, valuable geological information has been obtained.

Cuba’s state oil company, Cubapetróleo (Cupet) has informed Granma that PDVSA will, despite the setback, continue their participation in the exploration campaign in Cuban waters.

This is a discouraging news for the communist country which has been trying to develop its own hydrocarbon reserves in order to reduce its dependance on oil imports.

To remind, in the past couple of months, efforts made by Repsol, Gazprom and Petronas to unlock Cuban offshore oil reserves have also been unsuccessful.

All the companies mentioned used the Scarabeo 9 semi-submersible drilling rig. The rig, capable of operating in water depths of up to 3,600 meters, was built by Singapore’s Keppel specifically for drilling operations in Cuban waters.

Due to the United States trading embargo against Cuba, Repsol had to come up with a rig with almost no U.S. made parts in it, and according to Reuters, the only U.S. manufactured part on the Scarabeo 9 rig is a blowout preventer, a part that malfunctioned and caused the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico in 2010.

[mappress]
Offshore Energy Today Staff, November 2, 2012