CUBA - Gov't woos investors with slick oil, LNG tour

[Mika]

Source: Jamaica Gleaner

published: Monday | March 26, 2007

Cuban officials courted foreign geologists and petroleum experts during a tour of the island's oil and natural gas works on Saturday in hopes of sparking more international interest in investment.

Attendees at an earth sciences conference were taken by state oil company Cuba Petroleos to several extraction facilities in a deposit-rich strip along the northern part of the island, including the US$200 million Cuban-Canadian ENERGAS natural gas plant in an area called Boca de Jaruco.

-

The United States Geological Survey estimates that the North Cuba Basin holds 4.6 billion to 9.3 billion barrels of crude, along with 9.8 trillion cubic feet (280 billion cubic metres) to 21.8 trillion cubic feet (620 billion cubic metres) of natural gas.

Since 2003, companies from Norway, India, Malaysia, Spain and Venezuela have reserved blocks for petroleum exploration under production-sharing agreements with Cuba.
U.S. oil firms, however, are shut out by Washington's 45-year-old trade embargo on the island because of its communist stance.

Read more: http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20070326/carib/carib1.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. Undoubtedly there's a LOT of flying elbows behind the scenes in this situation.

There will be messages flying at companies to remind them of the Helms-Burton extraterritorial reach, and more threats than they can handle to warn them away from getting in there.

It would be great if some country finally challenges Helms-Burton legally, considering it was immediately designated as completely illegal in international law in the 1990's, and places like Canada have indicated their own companies are expected to disregard it altogether.