The goal is to find new deep-water oil reservoirs. The tool is Scarabeo 9, an advanced mobile drilling platform that supports a crew of 200 and can bore more than 9 miles into the ocean floor. The problem is its destination: Cuba.
Built in China and equipped in Singapore, the Italian-owned Scarabeo 9 is now on its maiden voyage from Asia to the Atlantic. The structure itself is designed to sustain 100-knot winds and waves almost 90 feet high, and the mobile platform is stabilized by hulking, submerged pontoons. Indeed, the rig itself doesn’t present unique safety concerns, but its target—the so-far-untapped oil reserves in deep Cuban waters—lies less than a hundred miles from the Florida coast. Scarabeo 9 is scheduled to arrive in Cuba by December and begin exploratory drilling by January, but U.S. officials are hurrying to figure what could happen, and who would respond, if an oil rig failed so close to Florida’s coast.
Built in China and equipped in Singapore, the Italian-owned Scarabeo 9 is now on its maiden voyage from Asia to the Atlantic. The structure itself is designed to sustain 100-knot winds and waves almost 90 feet high, and the mobile platform is stabilized by hulking, submerged pontoons. Indeed, the rig itself doesn’t present unique safety concerns, but its target—the so-far-untapped oil reserves in deep Cuban waters—lies less than a hundred miles from the Florida coast. Scarabeo 9 is scheduled to arrive in Cuba by December and begin exploratory drilling by January, but U.S. officials are hurrying to figure what could happen, and who would respond, if an oil rig failed so close to Florida’s coast.
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