by U.S.
The Associated Press
Published: March 20, 2007
HAVANA: Cuba is open to American companies that want to join the
communist country's new oil-drilling ventures but any such deals are
being blocked by Washington, the minister overseeing energy matters said
Tuesday.
Basic Industry Minister Yadira Garcia said exploratory drilling in the
Gulf of Mexico should start to yield profits by 2011.
"A lot of American companies have been coming, they know about our
studies ... but we are not the ones limiting them," Garcia told
reporters at an international gathering on earth sciences.
Garcia said it was "a good moment" for Washington to let American oil
companies invest in the Cuban market. Currently, a long-standing U.S.
trade embargo prohibits most American trade and investment with the
communist-run island.
In effect for more than four decades, the U.S. embargo bans virtually
all trade between the two countries except for the sales of American
food and medicine to the island.
Companies from Norway, India, Malaysia, Spain and Venezuela are among
those that have already reserved blocks for petroleum exploration under
production-sharing agreements with Cuba.
The U.S. Geological Survey has reported that the North Cuba Basin off
the island's coast holds a substantial quantity of oil — 4.6 billion to
9.3 billion barrels of crude and 9.8 trillion to 21.8 trillion cubic
feet of natural gas.
U.S. Senators Larry Craig, a Republican from Idaho, and Byron Dorgan, a
Democrat from North Dakota, earlier this month introduced a measure
containing a provision to allow U.S. oil and natural gas companies to
work in Cuban waters.
But a Senate bill already has been introduced that seeks to punish
companies that invest in Cuban drilling near Florida. U.S. Congresswoman
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Cuban-born Republican from Florida, has pledged a
similar measure in the House.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/03/20/business/CB-FIN-Cuba-US-Petroleum.php
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