Ray Sanchez | Direct from Havana
7:23 AM EDT, May 21, 2008
Havana
Hoping to ease a national housing shortage, Cuba said it will build
14,000 plastic homes each year at a petrochemical plant being
constructed with financial assistance from Venezuela.
The homes, about 753 square feet each, will be made mostly with
polyvinyl chloride produced by the new plant. It is scheduled for
completion in September and wil be part of the recently modernized
Cienfuegos oil refinery, project director Julian Alonso told Prensa
Latina, the state news agency.
Machinery for producing the "petrohouses," as the structures are called,
will arrive in Cuba next month, according to Alonso.
The program is a joint project with close ally Venezuela, which provides
about 92,000 barrels of oil per day to the island on favorable financial
terms. Venezuela also financed the modernization of the oil refinery. In
December, when the refinery reopened, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez
donated 100 "petrohouses" to Cuba with a promise to put up $1.3 billion
for a petrochemical plant to build more.
In other news, the state press reported Wednesday that Cuba saved more
than 961,000 tons of fuel oil over the last two years by implementing a
national energy-saving plan. The campaign, pushed by ailing former
president Fidel Castro, included the replacement of some household
appliances with newer, energy-saving models.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/cuba/sfl-0521havanadaily,0,162384.column
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