(AFP)
HAVANA — Cuba has invited Japan to invest in its oil industry, Cuba's
Foreign Ministry said Wednesday as the communist-ruled island intends to
begin drilling early next year in its offshore economic zone.
Havana's ambassador to Tokyo Jose Fernandez de Cossio "signified Cuba's
interest in Japanese companies participating as partners in various
aspects of the country's high-priority oil industry," the ministry said
on its website cubaminrex.cu.
Addressing a recent Tokyo seminar including some 70 representatives of
Japanese companies, Fernandez de Cossio spoke of the "real potential of
Cuba's petroleum industry" and stressed that "a legal framework exists
in which Japanese firms can find business opportunities," the ministry said.
Cuba manages a zone of some 112,000 square kilometers (43,000 square
miles) in the Gulf of Mexico. Of the zone's 59 blocks, 22 are under
contract with Norway's Statoil, which has formed a consortium to exploit
the blocks with Spain's Repsol, OVL of India and PDVSA of Venezuela,
among others.
According to state-owned Cubapetroleo, the island and its foreign
partners will begin next year drilling five wells in the gulf, where
Cuba estimates its zone contains some 20 billion barrels of oil.
Cuba's 2010 onshore and offshore production totaled 21.4 million
barrels, representing nearly half the island's energy needs. It imports
the rest from its closest regional ally Venezuela, which provides Cuba
with some 100,000 barrels per day, at cut-rate prices.
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