India joins offshore Cuba oil exploration

Reported here:

India’s government owned oil company will explore for oil and gas offshore Cuba following an agreement signed Sunday in Havana.

The agreement between India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, ONGC and Cuba Petroleo, CUPET, includes drillings in two of Cuba’s maritime blocks, N34 and N35 covering some 4.300 square kilometres in the Gulf of Mexico.

The agreement also gives CUPET the option to acquire 20% of activities undertaken on both blocks, where seismic surveying is scheduled to begin “immediately”.

"In the hydrocarbons sector, we firmly believe that Cuba represents a great opportunity for exploration with the possibility of making (energy) finds; we're going to explore this potential" said ONGC director general R.S. Butola.

Drilling in U.S. waters off Florida is still illegal and is still being resisted.