Bahama Platform

Commentary

The dry Perseverance-1 well in 2021 failed to find commercial hydrocarbons, and the government opposes offshore drilling, so there is little near-term prospect of renewed exploration. The BPB remains an unproven frontier. Outlook: Neutral.

Updated

October 6, 2026

Location

Description

The Bahama Platform is an extensive Mesozoic–Cenozoic carbonate platform complex built on rifted continental and transitional crust following Triassic graben formation during the opening of the Atlantic. Since the Jurassic it has evolved from a clastic-evaporite province to a single carbonate-evaporite platform and, from the Late Cretaceous, to the present array of shallow banks separated by deep troughs. The thickness of continuously deposited shallow-water carbonate is exceptional: wells have encountered Upper Jurassic shallow-water carbonates at 5,700m on Cay Sal Bank, and the Great Isaac well penetrated Jurassic carbonates and black shales above Triassic arkosic volcaniclastics. The USGS interprets the province, like the North Cuba Basin, to contain Upper Jurassic (Oxfordian and possibly Tithonian) source rocks that matured in the Late Cretaceous to Paleogene; the province remains essentially unexplored, with only a handful of wells drilled.

Summary

The Bahama Platform Basin (BPB) is relatively under-explored, with only a handful of wells drilled deep enough to test oil and gas prospectivity. Recent wells have improved the outlook, but that it was dry, is a set back for its prospectivity.