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| The Eirick Raude oil rig, 18 mi. off the northwest coast of Cuba. |
Repsol, a Spanish company, expects to begin drilling off Cuba in 2011, according to published reports and oil industry analysts. Companies from at least 10 other countries, including Russia and China, are negotiating or have already signed lease deals to drill off Cuba!
Backtrack to 2004
The Eirick Raude offshore rig is seen in this file photo from late 2003 in the Burin Sea off Canada. Spain’s Repsol has rented the Eirick Raude and has been drilling for 18 miles off Cuba’s northwest coast since June 2004. ( Photo by Ocean Rig/Reuters )
Drilling of an exploratory well in Cuba’s virgin Gulf of Mexico waters that could make the Communist nation an oil exporter and undermine the U.S. embargo has been completed, a senior official said. The drilling has since ended and the Spanish company is assessing the results. "We expect to be informed in two weeks.”
A commercially viable find could transform the cash-strapped island from oil importer to petroleum exporting nation, adding pressure on the United States to lift its four-decades-old trade embargo against President Fidel Castro’s government. The senior Cuban official said Repsol was analyzing samples to determine their quality and whether commercial production would be feasible. Repsol believes up to 1.6 billion barrels of oil may be located where the drill bit went down 18 miles off the northwest coast of Cuba in waters one mile deep.
Fast forward to 2011
Geography inherently makes a spill off Cuba's coast a potential disaster for South Florida. Zones established by maritime law in 1977 gave the U.S. and Cuba special rights of exploration and navigation in the Florida Straits.
The boundary of Cuba's Exclusive Economic Zone extends to within 45 miles of Key West. The parcels within the zone that Cuba has leased for drilling are along Cuba's northwest coast - about 65 miles south of Key West.
By comparison, the Deepwater Horizon well, as much of a concern as it is to South Florida officials, is 800 miles away. Oil from a spill off Cuba could much more quickly enter the Florida Straits and blanket the Keys and South Florida as it is pulled north on the Gulf Stream.
Politics, geography and long-standing grudges would make responding to a spill from Cuba much more complex. The 48-year-old Cold War era embargo against Cuba would bar U.S. companies from providing equipment, technology, advice, vessels or personnel to stop and clean a spill off Cuba. Today, if Mexico or the Bahamas or Canada have a spill, all they have to do is call Houston and in a matter of hours they have access to submarines, skimmers and blowout preventers. With Cuba, that is not the case.
Cuba has limited ability to refine oil. The embargo bans U.S. companies from refining Cuba's oil, and two other large refineries in the Caribbean are owned by U.S. companies: Hess in St. Croix, Virgin Islands, and Valero in Aruba. Venezuela's refineries are maxed out.
Oil has zero value unless you can turn it into gasoline or diesel. Where are they going to refine it? Politics could force an answer to that question. Lifting the embargo and allowing U.S. companies to profit from refining Cuban oil is one option. Another is to continue the embargo and risk Cuba strengthening its friendships with U.S. foes. A refinery on Cuba's northern coast is being built by a partnership between Venezuela and Cuba.
Sarasota Republican Rep. Vern Buchanan has introduced legislation to allow the U.S. Interior Department to deny oil and gas leases to companies involved in Cuba's oil drilling operations. Sen. Bill Nelson plans to reintroduce legislation to pull the visas for executives of such companies. Buchanan, a staunch opponent of drilling off Florida's coast, said he worries Cuba doesn't have the expertise to contain a spill.
Repsol is expected to drill to 5,600 feet — deeper than the Deepwater Horizon rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico. Up for exploration is an area about 22 miles north of Havana and 65 miles south of the Marquesas Keys.
Senator Bill Nelson, Democrat of Florida, is urging President Obama to recall a diplomatic note to Havana reinforcing a 1977 boundary agreement that gives Cuba jurisdiction up to 45 miles from Florida. “I am sure you agree that we cannot allow Cuba to put at risk Florida’s major business and irreplaceable environment,” he wrote the president shortly after the BP accident. So far, the President has refused.
| Nelson, Bill - (D - FL) | Class I |
| 716 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510 | |
| (202) 224-5274 | |
| Web Form: billnelson.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm | |
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| Rubio, Marco - (R - FL) | Class III |
| B40A DIRKSEN SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510 | |
| (202) 224-3041 | |
| Web Form: rubio.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/contact | |
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