Castro regime finds new suckers: Norwegian offshore oil rig heading to Cuba

You have to hand it to Cuba’s Castro dictatorship: In spite of more than five decades of lies and harebrained schemes designed to extract hard currency and political capital from foreign entities, they still manage to find suckers willing to be swindles. The latest suckers are a Russian investor and the Norwegian oil exploration company Songa. The partners are sending an offshore rig to Cuba, which is scheduled to begin operations on July 1st.

Naturally, the results will be no different from the previous attempts to extract oil from non-existent reserves.

Via upstream:

Songa rig gig off Cuba

Russian explorer Zarubezhneft has secured semi-submersible rig Songa Mercur for its upcoming drilling campaign off Cuba under a charter deal with Norwegian contractor Songa Offshore.

The rig has been fixed for a firm period of 325 days on a contract worth a minimum of around $88 million, including mobilisation costs, to yield an overall dayrate of $270,770.

However, Songa said in a bourse statement revenue from the deal may increase depending on the start date for rig operations and a possible extension of the drilling programme for well testing or other work.

The contract is due to start on 1 July when the semisub will be mobilised from Malaysia to Trinidad, where it will be moored at a standby rate until scheduled start of drilling in late November.

Zarubezhneft is among explorers taking up the chase for hydrocarbons off Cuba after Spanish player Repsol abandoned its abortive exploration bid following a recent dry well on the deep-water Jaguey prospect off the South American country.

The rig used for that well, Saipem’s Scarabeo 9, is now being employed by Malaysia’s Petronas and Russian explorer Gazprom Neft to drill a probe as part of a planned two-well campaign in Cuban waters, with results expected next month. PetroVietnam is also reported to be vying for a rig slot in Cuba.