Cuba Drilling

Sherritt announced they would commence drilling in Block 10 (adjacent to Block 9), in Q3... should be spudding any time now. I understand the target is an appraisal of the Cupey 1x discovery in 1994 (see below). Drilling is planned from onshore, a long, perhaps 6000m horizontal leg, out under the shallow Bay of Cadenas. Almost certainly this will result in success with significant nearology interest for MEO fyi

""The 1X Cupey discovery well was spudded in mid December 1993 in about 20 ft of water on Block 10, a 300 sq km tract acquired Mar. 16, 1992, by Sherritt Inc. unit Canada Northwest Energy Ltd. (CNE), Calgary, and Fortuna Petroleum Inc., a unit of Talisman Energy Inc., also of Calgary, under a production sharing contract (PSC) with state oil company Cubapetroleo SA (Cupet).

After reaching 10,670 ft TD in late April, CNE's 1X Cupey wildcat last month flowed 3,750 b/d of 16 gravity oil through a in. choke with 1,488 psi flowing tubing pressure from a 440 ft lower Cretaceous interval at about 7,875 ft. Drilling was suspended for reservoir evaluation.
CNE released the Stainton Ltd. Atena jack up, scheduled to drill two wells on a nearby tract for a unit of Total. CNE expects to continue testing 1X Cupey when the rig returns, likely in first quarter 1995.
Cuba's first offshore oil production could begin soon thereafter. Block 10 operator CNE and Fortuna are to receive 60% and 40%, respectively, of the PSC holders' share of future production. Officials did not disclose what the production split with Cupet will be.
CNE's 1X Cupey is Cuba's first offshore discovery and only the second wildcat drilled in the Bay of Cardenas. Gulf Oil Corp. in 1948 drilled a Hicacos formation test that was abandoned as a dry hole with some oil shows.
Based on seismic confirmation of the structure indicated by Gulf's Hicacos wildcat, Soviet officials in the 1980s began plans to reenter the well.
Plans included several directional delineation/development wells from a piled platform set in shallow water about 100 ft west of Gulfs wellsite. Soviet workers in the late 1980s installed the Hicacos platform in the northern end of the bay but never drilled a well from it""
DYOR