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Cuba ready to drill for oil deeper than BP
| In the meantime we have a Gulf drilling moratorium implemented by Champ. We lose, the Cubans win. It's almost as it was planned. |
WASHINGTON -- Cuba is expected to begin drilling offshore for oil and gas as soon as next year with equipment that will go deeper than the Deepwater Horizon rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, industry experts say.
The Spanish energy company, Repsol, which drilled an exploratory well in 2004 off the coast near Havana, has contracted to drill the first of several exploratory wells with a semi-submersible rig that is expected to arrive in Cuba at the end of the year, said Jorge Piñon, an energy expert and visiting research fellow at the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University. He said the rig is expected to drill down 5,600 feet in an area about 22 miles north of Havana and 65 miles south of the Marquesas Keys.
Luis Alberto Barreras Cañizo, who led the Cuban delegation as a representative of Cuba's Ministry of Science, Technology and the Environment, confirmed the plans for exploration.
``Cuba needs to find its oil, it's a resource Cuba needs,'' he told the Bradenton Herald in an interview.
| We need it too, as it turns out. Somebody tell Champ. |
Environmentalists suggested the prospect of rigs just 45 miles from Florida's coastline could intensify pressure for the Obama administration to engage in talks with its Cold War antagonist to prevent ecological damage.
| Why? We'll be buying the stuff. And why would the Cubans talk with us about shutting down the drill rigs when they obviously need the oil, for themselves and to sell? The environmentalists are, as usual, clueless about the real world. |
``A policy of isolationism doesn't benefit anyone. We have a selfish interest in talking with Cuba,'' said David Guggenheim, a conference organizer and senior fellow at The Ocean Foundation in Washington. ``At a minimum, you need a good Rolodex.''
Guggenheim has been working on marine research and conservation issues with Cuba for nearly a decade and assisted the country with satellite images and models to track the trajectory of the Gulf spill. He said computer modeling shows that an oil spill off Cuba's coast could end up in U.S. waters -- chiefly the Florida Keys and the state's east coast.
| Because, you know, they're only 50 miles away. Boy howdy, what would we do without experts? |
``The Gulf isn't going to respect any boundaries when it comes to oil spills,'' he said.
Barreras said he's not worried about the ecological effects of offshore drilling, saying, ``the Cuban environmental framework is very progressive.''
| It's almost Soviet in how progressive it is ... |
A State Department spokeswoman said the United States expects that oil exploration companies would have ``adequate safeguards in place'' and that U.S. companies could get a license through the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control to help with oil spill prevention efforts in Cuba.
| But they can't get a license to drill in the Gulf ... |
But FIU's Piñon, who argued in a paper in May that U.S.-Cuba policy would ``foreclose the ability to respond effectively'' to an oil disaster, said such permits could take weeks. ``You can't put a spill on hold to wander through the bureaucracy,'' he said.
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Miami, accused the Cuban regime of saying ``anything to attract investors and convince them to open their wallets.''
| Correct. I don't blame Raul for that; he's in a tough situation with trying to keep his people happy and cut his own throat un-cut ... |
``The regime is in tough economic straits and to keep itself afloat, is now looking at the oil industry, among others, to throw it a lifeline,'' she said.
Posted by: Steve White 2010-10-01 |
