Oil in Cuba? Chavez says Fidel is OPEC-bound
Cuba, which for decades has struggled with crippling energy crises, has black gold and could be OPEC-bound, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez said with a smile.
"Fidel is headed for OPEC ... I hope it will be the case," Chavez joked at a meeting of developing countries in Havana.
"He is finding oil," added Chavez, whose country Cuba's most important political and economic ally.
If Cuba were to achieve energy independence, the Cinderella-story shift could flip regional geopolitics upside down, potentially turning Castro's cash-strapped, oil import-dependent regime into a crude exporter able to fund itself well into the future.
Venezuela's oil shipments to Cuba at preferential credit rates have been key to keeping Cuba's battered economy afloat in the wake of the collapse of the former East bloc.
Though Cuba does produce a small amount of low-quality oil, recent deep-water studies have been promising.
Just Sunday India's state-run oil company signed a deal with Cuba for oil exploration in the Gulf of Mexico.
Under the deal, India's Oil and National Gas Corporation (ONGC) will explore blocs N-34 and N-35, which cover an area of 4,300 square kilometers (1,544 square miles) in Cuban waters.
ONGC already has a 30 percent interest in six other blocs in which Norway's Norsk Hydro also has 30 percent interest and Spain's Repsol YPF 40 percent.
Officials of the state-run Cuba Petroleos (CUPET) say a total of six companies have signed exploration deals for 16 blocs in the Gulf of Mexico.
With oil prices soaring, US lawmakers are grumbling about the prospecting in Cuban waters just off the US coast.
Economic sanctions imposed by Washington make it impossible for US firms to work with Cuba, and environmental laws prevent them from drilling in nearby US waters.
US media have reported that China was involved in the prospecting but Cuba has not announced a Chinese deal.
The Gulf's waters are divided into economic exclusion zones of the United States, Mexico and Cuba.
Among other companies with prospecting rights if not projects there are Canada's Sherrit International and Brazil's state oil giant Petrobras.
Cuba produces about a third of the oil it consumes, with the rest imported under favorable terms from Venezuela, a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC.)
Repsol has rights to six of the 59 prospecting areas the Cuban government has been auctioning off since 1999. It carried out its first drilling in 2004 and while oil was found, Repsol said the quality of that crude was not commercial grade.
Venezuela, currently Latin America's only member of the OPEC oil cartel, agreed in 2000 to deliver 53,000 barrels of crude a day to Cuba, with a special credit rate for Chavez ally Castro. But that number has soared to 80,000-90,000 barrels a day, according to Venezuelan oil officials.
AFP
