Russian oil companies are working on immediate projects to "increase the exploitation efficiency" of Cuban fields

The Russian oil companyRosneft and the also state one, Zarubezhneft, are working on projects aimed at improving the efficiency of the “mature oil fields” in Cuba, and are studying the possibility of jointly developing the so-called “Block 37” of the Cuban platform.

According to documents from the upcoming visit to the Island of the Russian Prime Minister, Dmitri Medvedev - cited bySputnik- Projects are being developed with the immediate goal of increasing the efficiency of Cuban oil fields, something that Cuba greatly needed to reduce its dependence on international crude oil.

In particular, Zarubezhneft and the Cuban company Cupet are preparing a joint project in theBoca de Jaruco site, which allows the obtaining of up to 3,700 million tons of crude oil on the Island.

The first horizontal drilling, of three planned, is planned for this Friday, October 4, within the framework of the visit of Medvedev, who will travel to the Island on October 3 and 4.

The Russian Prime Minister is scheduled to meet withMiguel Diaz-Canel and that the visit includes the signing of bilateral intergovernmental and ministerial agreements and various commercial contracts.

Rosneft has a long history of service to Cuba, in March 2018, a statement from the Russian state oil company announced thatThroughout 2017, that company supplied around 217 thousand tons of oil and mineral oil to the companyCubametales within the framework of compliance with an intergovernmental agreement between both countries.

The contract between both companies for the supply of 250 thousand tons of oil and diesel fuel, which finally amounted to 217 thousand tons, had been signed in March 2017, and deliveries were made between May and August of that year.

Although the Minister of Energy, Alexánder Novak, cited by the agencyTass, noted in April 2017 thatShipments would only take place if the Island found financing to pay for it.In the end the transaction was completed. The president of the Energy Development Foundation, Sergei Pinkin, commented then that the resumption of Russian oil supplies to Cuba was a"political decision".

At the end of 2016,Raúl Castro asked his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to guarantee the supply of oil and derived products to the Island, given the notable decrease in Venezuelan oil shipments.

Regarding Rosneft's current ties with Cuba,with whose president Raúl Castro met personally.

The new agreement with Russian oil companies comes at a time whenPolitical and economic relations between Russia and Cuba are going through their best moment in the last three decades.