Cuba's Hunt For #Oil Raises Questions For U.S.

  Adalberto Roque/AFP/Getty Images by Nick Miroff
An oil rig operated by Cuba and China in eastern Havana. The Cuban government and its foreign partners plan to begin drilling in the Gulf of Mexico this fall.

In the deep waters off Cuba's north coast, a Chinese-built oil rig is due to begin drilling this fall in an area geologists believe may have huge beds of undersea crude.

A significant find could transform Cuba's economy and possibly alter relations with the United States, but it may also present new environmental threats for the Florida coast.

Mariel — the town 30 miles west of Havanna that was a departure point for more than 100,000 Cubans who left the island in the 1980 Mariel boatlift — is being remade into a servicing hub for the Cuban oil industry of the future.

Crews there are working furiously to finish new port facilities and a railway with hundreds of millions in Brazilian financing.

Cuba's Hunt For Oil Raises Questions For US