Cuba's fledgling oil industry has for the first time dropped
an offshore rig into the waters off the Florida Keys, a move that
has U.S. officials and environmentalists warning that the island
nation's energy ambitions could come at the expense of the
ecologically sensitive region at the tip of the Florida
Peninsula.
"Cuba cannot be trusted to provide even the bare essentials to
its own citizens and it certainly can't be trusted to oversee
safe and environmentally sound oil drilling only 90 miles off our
pristine Florida coast," said Florida Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll
in testimony before the House Subcommittee on Coast Guard and
Maritime Transportation.
Working with Spain's biggest oil company, Repsol, Cuba has
placed an exploratory well 30 miles off Havana, 5,600 feet below
the ocean surface. It's one of five wells planned in the region
and is deeper than BP's Macondo well that spilled millions of
barrels of oil in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. The well sits 56
miles away from the Keys. By contrast, BP's well was 41 miles off
the Lousiana coast. Cuban officials hope that the oil
produced offshore will fill a 100,000-barrel-a-day supply gap
currently covered by Venezuela.
Because of the well's location in the Florida Strait a spill
or blowout, like the one that occurred in the Gulf, would be an
environmental disaster of untold peril, said John Proni
of Florida International University, a scientist with the
Atlantic Oceanography and Meteorological Laboratory, a branch of
the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.
Proni, who also testified before the maritime subcommittee,
explained that the Cuban rig sits dangerously close to the Gulf
Stream current system. Any leaked oil that gets into this
whirlpool would reach U.S. coastal waters quickly and threaten
the "iconic Florida coral reef system, important fisheries and
breeding grounds, location of threatened and endangered sea grass
and coral, and habitat for rare and endangered species," Proni
said.
The drilling of the well is expected to take roughly two
months.
The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement concluded
last month that the Cuban rig met U.S. standards after American
offshore oil drilling regulators boarded and reviewed the
Spanish-operated equipment before it reached Cuban waters.
However, because the rig was not bound for U.S. territory, nor
contracted for exploration in the United States, the regulators
had no authority to influence Repsol's plans. The U.S. has
recently overhauled its offshore permitting processes and
tightened regulations -- and it is likely that these rules will
continue to evolve in the coming years. Since the U.S. and Cuba
do not have diplomatic relations, it will be impossible to
continue to monitor this offshore project even as the standards
for operating rigs in coastal waters improve.
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