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--- Begin Message --- -Caveat Lector-Not Just Oil at Stake in Drilling
A firm's exploration off Cuba could change the nation's economy and relations with the U.S.
By Marc Frank
Financial Times
June 28, 2004
HAVANA � An event unfolding 18 miles off Cuba's northwestern coast could change the course of the nation: Repsol YPF, the Spanish petrochemicals company, is drilling for oil in virgin waters.
Experts say Cuba's share of the Gulf of Mexico, like those of Mexico and the U.S., may harbor large quantities of crude. All eyes are watching Repsol: A discovery would boost the company's reserves and open a new and promising area to oil exploration. It could also mark the beginning of the communist nation's transformation from a bankrupt oil-importing country to an oil exporter � and could generate corporate pressure for the U.S. to lift its decades-old trade embargo.
"It is difficult to imagine how the U.S. oil industry could stay on the sidelines for long if there is a commercial find," said John Kavulich, president of U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council Inc., which monitors commercial relations between the two countries.
Some experts say it's very unlikely that the drilling succeeds, but others think experience begets at least some results.
"The chances that we will find oil are better than winning the lottery or a casino jackpot," said one engineer working to drill there. "More like getting some of the numbers right or coming out ahead at the blackjack table on consecutive nights."
Repsol must believe it has a good shot, the engineer said, as it has contracted the Eirik Raude drilling rig � a Norwegian semi-submersible deep water platform that is one of the world's newest and most sophisticated � at $195,000 a day.
A person close to the project said geologists were fairly certain they had located oil and gas a mile below the sea's surface.
"They contracted the Eirik Raude to determine the ratio of oil to gas and the oil's quality, the pool's commercial viability," the person said.
"These are high risk areas � but we are optimistic," Repsol Chairman Alfonso Cortina de Alcocer said this year.
The company reported it would spend more than $40 million but believes that as many as 1.6 billion barrels of oil may lie below the seabed. Repsol holds 5.3 billion barrels of oil equivalent, which includes natural gas reserves, so such a find would boost its reserves by 30%.
A Lloyds Register report to other oil companies and potential Repsol partners in developing any significant find estimated that $1.5 billion would be needed to develop 150,000 barrels a day by 2008.
Cuba has desperately searched for oil since the Soviet Union's demise deprived it of 255,000 barrels a day on very favorable terms.
"It would be a huge economic boon that would end a decade-old foreign exchange crunch," said Phil Peters, an expert on Cuba and vice president of the Lexington Institute, a think tank in Arlington, Va.
Cuba's oil and gas production has increased from less than 10,000 barrels a day to the equivalent of 75,000, which is half the country's current fuel consumption.
The Gulf of Mexico was divided by treaty between Cuba, Mexico and the U.S. 25 years ago. Cuba's 43,000 square miles were divided into 59 blocks for foreign exploration in 1999.
Few companies, however, have signed on. Repsol took the rights to six blocks in 2000 and Sherritt International of Canada recently opted for four others. The foreign companies must form partnerships with Cubapetroleo, the state oil monopoly, if oil is discovered.
Industry sources say companies from China, France, Britain, Brazil and elsewhere are seriously considering exploration, but waiting for Repsol's results � and the U.S. reaction to development.peace,Tom
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