Tue Mar 20, 2007 4:17 PM ET
By Esteban Israel
HAVANA, March 20 (Reuters) - Cuba should begin its controversial
drilling for oil in its Gulf of Mexico waters early next year, the
country's Basic Industry Minister said on Tuesday, adding she would
welcome U.S. participation.
Minister Yadira Garcia said the government and Spanish oil major
Repsol-YPF were negotiating with third parties to contract a drilling
platform to sink various exploratory wells.
"We are working together with Repsol on the platform that in 2008 should
arrive to begin drilling during the first half of the year," Garcia said
at the opening of a geology conference in Havana.
Repsol drilled an exploratory deep-water well in 2004, finding signs of
good quality oil but not in commercial quantities.
India's state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp. (ONGC) and Norway's Norsk
Hydro <NHY.OL> partnered with Repsol in 2006 to explore its six blocks.
Cuba's 43,250-square-mile (112,000-square-km) exclusive economic zone in
the Gulf of Mexico was parceled into 59 blocks for foreign exploration
in 1999. The U.S. Geological Survey has estimated the North Cuba basin
could contain some 4.6 billion barrels of oil, with a high-end potential
of 9.3 billion barrels and close to a trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
A total of 20 blocks have been taken by foreign firms to date, which
also include Canadian firm Sherritt International <S.TO>, Malaysia's
state-run Petroliam Nasional Berhad and Venezuela's state-run PDVSA.
"For next year we plan to sink test wells to prove the existence of oil.
Then it will be two or three years to consolidate the find and build the
needed structures to exploit the oil, depending on financing," Minister
Garcia said.
U.S. companies are barred from exploring for oil in Cuba's offshore
zone. But the possibility of striking oil just 90 miles (144 km) off
U.S. shores has some companies and U.S. law makers introducing
legislation to exempt oil from the 1962 embargo against President Fidel
Castro's leftist government.
Florida lawmakers have introduced legislation that would penalize
companies for working with Cuba and even scrap a treaty signed in the
1970s that defines Cuba's exclusive economic zone.
They charge drilling could result in spills that would spoil Florida
beeches.
Garcia said U.S. oil companies have been visiting Cuba and her ministry
has shared information with them, as they would be welcome to
participate in exploration.
"Its not Cuba but the U.S. government that stops U.S. companies through
all the mechanisms of the blockade," she said.
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