Petrobras studying block in deep Cuban waters

HAVANA, May 30 (Reuters) - Brazilian state oil company Petrobras is studying a block in deep Cuban waters for possible exploration as part of broader cooperation with the Caribbean island, a top advisor to the company said on Friday.

"We are planning to cooperate not only in exploration and production, but lubricants, refining and training," Andre Ghirardi told Reuters in Havana at a one-day meeting of Brazilian and Cuban businessmen.

"We are working on the possibility of exploring a block in the Gulf of Mexico, but negotiations have not ended, they are advancing," he said.

Interest in Cuba's Gulf of Mexico blocks has picked up as oil prices soar.

Seven foreign companies have signed exploration agreements with Cuban state oil company CUPET for 28 of the 59 blocks available in the deep Gulf of Mexico waters of Cuba's economic exclusion zone fronting the United States.

The U.S. Geological Survey estimated the North Cuba basin could contain 4.6 billion barrels of oil, with a high-end potential of 9.3 billion barrels, and close to 1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

Ghirardi said negotiations to build a lubricants plant in Cuba were going well, though no agreement had been signed.

Venezuela's PDVSA has become a major player in the Cuban oil industry.

PDVSA and Cuba have started up and are expanding a Soviet-built oil refinery in central Cienfuegos province and modernizing another in eastern Santiago de Cuba.