I had planned on making a few more posts on China's offshore infrastructure and future plans, but we kept getting sidetracked onto tangential topics. Anyway, instead of making my final ten posts on China's infrastructure, I will leave you with one.
"Due to the longstanding U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, the embargo limits the amount of U.S. technology that can be used" by Cuba. To unlock her offshore oil wealth, Cuba had to wait until China's equipment-manufacturing industry was sufficiently advanced to provide the complex technology. The time has come.
Cuba to Start Offshore Oil Exploration in Early 2011 | Offshore Energy Today
"Cuba to Start Offshore Oil Exploration in Early 2011
Posted on Aug 3rd, 2010
A Chinese-built drilling rig is expected to arrive in Cuban waters in early 2011; likely opening the way for full-scale exploration of the island’s untapped offshore fields.
Companies with contracts to search for oil and gas in Cuba’s portion of the Gulf of Mexico have already begun preparations to drill once the Scarabeo 9 rig gets on the spot. An official with Saipem, a unit of Italian oil company Eni told Reuters
the massive semisubmersible rig should be completed at the Yantai Raffles shipyard in Yantai, China, by the end of this year.
The journey to Cuba will take two months, and once it arrives it will be put into operation almost immediately, said the official, who asked not to be identified. It will be used first as an exploratory well for a consortium led by Spanish oil giant Repsol YPF, which drilled the only offshore well in Cuba in 2004 and said at the time it had found hydrocarbons.
Cuba has said it may have 20 billion barrels of oil in its offshore, but the U.S. Geological Survey has estimated a more modest 4.6 billion barrels and 10 trillion cubic feet of gas. Repsol has been mostly silent on the long delay in drilling more wells, but it is widely assumed in the oil industry it was due to the
longstanding U.S. trade embargo against Cuba.
The embargo limits the amount of U.S. technology that can be used, which complicates finding equipment because U.S. companies have long dominated the offshore oil business.
A number of oil service companies have solicited information about Cuban regulations, diplomats said. Cuba’s state-owned oil company Cupet has been silent about the offshore activity and rejected requests for interviews.
A government official said the requests were denied because Cupet did not want to speak during the BP oil spill in the Gulf.
The spill has never reached Cuba, but it has heightened safety concerns both in the government and among oil companies with offshore blocks, sources said.
The prospect of drilling in Cuban waters has also raised pollution fears in Florida, which is just 80 km away from the island’s maritime boundary."