McMoRan: Blackbeard East Cross Section

McMoRan has proved that wells can be drilled and safely evaluated in the shallow water, ultra-deep shelf play. The Trailblazer area is a new sub-salt trend covering more than 200 miles on shelf. Prospects are targeted on large structual features with multi-TCFe potential.

Shale Plays: Wolfcamp

      Wolcamp  attributes  and comparison to major shale plays, from Pioneer corporate presentation, May 2012. Pioneer's internal research estimates 50 to 100 Million barrels oil per 640 acre section. Tha's 5 to 10x the Bakken estimates. The Permian basin just keeps on giving it up!

Repsol Cuban Duster

Repsol comes up dry for Cuba exploration well

WASHINGTON -- Spanish oil firm Repsol has announced that an exploratory well in Cuban waters wasn't successful and will be capped.

In February, Repsol initiated deep-water exploration drilling about 50 km north of Havana as part of its global exploration operations. Repsol's drilling efforts represented the beginning of Cuba's push to develop its offshore oil resources, in part to wean itself off imports from Venezuela.

"The well was dry," said Repsol spokesman Kristian Rix. "Geologists are evaluating how we move forward."

Repsol resumed exploration in the area after it failed to find exploitable oil in 2004. The U.S. Geological Survey has said there could be 5 billion barrels of untapped oil off the Cuban coast.

The Repsol well was much closer to Florida than any other well in the region. U.S. authorities previously inspected Repsol's Scarabeo 9 drilling rig off the coast of Trinidad and Tobago and said the vessel complied with existing international and U.S. standards.

The Spanish company is operating the rig in partnership with Norway's Statoil and a unit of India's ONGC.

Dow Jones Newswires

Alaska North Slope Map