Drilling off the coast of Cuba
China will send 12 hi-tech rigs to drill for oil in Cuban waters of the Gulf of Mexico, officials have confirmed, irking US lawmakers that US firms cannot prospect in nearby US waters.
Cuba has stepped up work on a total of 36 new oil wells with Chinese companies and Canada’s Sherritt, about four kilometers (2.5 miles) off the north coast, officials said privately…And diplomatic sources on Thursday said that India’s ONGC Videsh and Norway’s Norsk Hydro would join forces with Spain’s Repsol to seek crude in the Gulf of Mexico.
Among other companies with prospecting rights if not projects there are Canada’s Sherritt International and Brazil’s state oil giant Petrobras.
Cuba has invited US firms to take part but the US economic embargo bars them from doing so.
Business as usual — if you want votes in Miami.
Instead of attacking the US’s policy, why aren’t we attacking the policy of other countries for supporting Castro? …or is that to idealistic?
That is to say, if you believe that Cuba (i.e. Castro) needs to still have sanctions against them.
Well, the question is, why do we have embargoes against Cuba? Compare China and Cuba for yourself, and you’ll find little differences in their human rights policies, and you may realize that it’s entirely political motivation that keeps the embargoes in place.
I don’t understand why we don’t overthrow Castro now. We could get away with it, measured against all of the other shit the US gets away with, and it would be boon for all parties involved (even Castro, who’d probably get to retire on some island… that’s a lot nicer than Cuba… thanks to the UN).
While the “you could be next” threat doesn’t seem to work against Iran, I suspect it would against the Foxes and Chaveses of the world.
I’d wager that the PR offices at the big US oil companies are not recommending taking this issue on publicly. I don’t care, frankly, who’s looking for more supply these days; just so long as they are…
What’s the price of gasoline in Miami these days, anyways? Maybe Castro’s taking all that extra cabbage and investing in Apple stock.
Conservatively, 9 times of 10, everyone is better off talking to each other instead of embargoing and hollering. It used to be called “diplomacy”.
The same is true of doing business with each other. I’m bored to death with Liberals who prate about American democracy as the only model — without taking into account any other nation’s culture, history, economic abilities, education, etc.. It takes people and nations time to change. You don’t throw a switch [or invade, bringing the switch along with you in a magic box]. About as backwards and static as Conservatives who approach business as a religion.
The more people who benefit from an economic process the better it continues to grow and function. It just takes a few greedy bastards — whether they’re corporate execs or politicians playing pocket-pool with lobbyists — to screw up the process. Opportunity begets opportunity.
So why isn’t the US drilling there? This is also off the US coast.
This is the Outer Continental Shelf, and the US should be letting American companies drill there too.
Oil drilling rights are leases that are bid for. Offshore they are regulated by international treaty. Taking things because Americans “feel like it” may be a habit but can be illegal.
From the headline, i thought it was Cuba that had chosen not to trade with the US, as payback for the US cutting them off for trade for all these years. Seems like a situation where the US could benefit from the trade, got to be cheaper shipping from Cuba than from the middle east But politics is getting in the way. Okay so if Bush could come up with reason or indicate that Cuba posed some threat that the majority of the US people or their political representatives would buy, an attack on Cuba could go ahead. But i imagine it would be much easier and cheaper and less risky (china might not like there contracts with Cuba disappearing) just to relax the embargo. Surely the embargo has some sort of time limit, maybe when Castro is out of the picture. The US trades with other communist countries like china, which in many ways looks more questionable(human rights wise), so apart from proximity of Cuba to the US and the value of the trade i don’t see why trade won’t open up in the near future, especially when oil is involved, the only problem will be that china will have got there first and secured the contracts
Remember that the eco groups don’t want drilling there (as long as it’s US companies)… just like they don’t want drilling in Anwar or off of the California, the Carolina’s, etc… coastlines.
Moss, we use embargoes because they work. Cuba is a great example of how well they can work. Iran is another great example.
I remember a few years ago a Canadian charity gathered some old computers to send to Cuban Medical clinics. Only, during shipment to Mexico, the US government confiscated them. Even though it was against NAFTA for the American government to stop the shipment, they did anyway. Also, because all the large drug companies either are American owned or do business in the US, they were not allowed to sell drugs to charities in Canada (and I presume elsewhere too) to send to Cuba.
One company mentioned, Sherrit, from Canada, was indicted a few years ago because they had dealings in the US and Cuba. Sherrit ended up selling their US properties and continued on in Cuba. The President and some other high officials with Sherrit are not allowed in the US because of that.
After the embargo with Cuba stopped the majority of sugar cane imports, it increased the amount of sugar beets grown and the increased use of corn sweeteners. Both are more expensive then cane. As well, although the link has not been proven, American’s obesity problem really started with the advent of corn sweeteners replacing cane sugar.
Yup, embargoes work. As the article pointed out, there are a lot of foreign companies willing to pick up the slack.
…why aren’t we attacking the policy of other countries for supporting Castro?
That would require us to have some inkling of how this feud started – 47-years ago [ when I was 1 ]. Not to mention all the B.S. that has gone on since then.
Castro has been running Cuba while : Ike, JFK, LBJ, Tricky Dicky, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush-41, Clinton, and Bush-43 have served as US Presidents. 47-years. Sweet Jesus! Eisenhower was in office when Castro’s revolution occurred…
Why should other governments/corporations follow our long-standing policy: “Wait for Castro to Die…” – just because we can’t “sh*t or get-off the pot“?
We rail about the faults of Cuba/Castro – but find it damned convenient to establish a prison for “detainees” there, without US laws applying… “Its just a lease, its not US soil…”
The last time that I am aware of any mainstream Americans giving a sh*t about Cuba, was during the great conjunction of National Elections & Media Circus – in 2000 – when Elian Gonzalez was returned to his Father.
But that is sooo pre-9/11. 🙂
#7 The Cuban exiles in the US are still of the opinion that at some point they will get their seized property back when Castro is gone.
Exactly. Eerily reminds me of the Palestinian’s demand for the “Right of Return” – to homes and property they owned 50-years ago – even when the homes have been demolished, and new ones built there.
#12 Which is undoubtedly why the Cubans are always offering. 🙂
Yes, I think so too…. Gotta luv it.
Of course, there is allways the risk of Castro following Evo Morales lead…
Reading this stuff here, I DO begin to like Castro. I think he’s always been and still is better for his country than those Baby Docs and Stroessners and other Nazi look-alikes the US politics preferred to support in South America.
BTW: How about using less oil?
Herbert, if you’re opinions are swayed by the ranting of a few people here (myself included), you need to read more…and not Blog sites.
#1, 16, & 20, I’m glad you would still prefer the mafia / United Fruit Company / CIA controlled the Batista regime that was in Cuba. Or, for that matter, any of the other right wing dictators supported by the US that prevailed throughout Latin America.
Drilling for oil is like sticking a big straw in the ground and sucking real hard (possible over simplification?). If the good stuff lies off the Cuban coast then stick a big straw sideways until it hits the Cuban good stuff and suck on. What are they going to do, beat us up?
I know, I should be more sensitive and caring, and I really am, but not all the time.
Rep. Peferson has a bill to allow drilling in the Continental Shelf.
#22 — oversimplification isn’t close. Illegal is. The Oil Patch Boys may be greedy bastards; but, they adhere to a modicum of law-abiding behavior because the same egregious stunts you and others have suggested — can be run 2 ways.
I worked in offshore oil construction in the Gulf of Mexico. The International Treaties governing current allotment leases there are over 30 years old. If you don’t abide by the laws — you lose your leases.
It’s a long, careful and delicate process. I’ve been watching the Chinese and Japanese tiptoe around each other [hollering sometimes; but, not being stupid about it] for 10 years, now — over the dividing line between each nation’s share of oil and gas lying between them. Finally getting close to a treaty.
#23 — I’m not even going to waste time looking up some vanity law offered up by some Congressman from MN or PA. Irrelevent to treaty law. I presume you mean the Peterson from PA since he’s often described as a Cheney sock puppet.
Hello, we have American Soil in Cuba. It’s called Guantanamo. To bad our new President to busy allowing foreign country’s to exploit American Natural Resources to their benefit and not ours. How many Americans could be employed to drill, pump, refine, and distribute oil within 90 miles of the Mainland? The President has stated that gasoline should be 4 dollars a gallon and it will be. We wanted change and we are going to get it!!!!!!!! Hang on for the ride Boys and Girls it’s not going to get any better.