Repsol comes up dry in Cuba offshore well

By Jeff Franks and Marc Frank

HAVANA | Fri May 18, 2012 2:37pm EDT

(Reuters) - Spanish oil giant Repsol said Friday that the first of three planned wells in Cuban waters was unsuccessful, a blow to Cuba's hopes for energy independence.
"I can confirm that the Repsol well in Cuba has been reported to be unsuccessful and that we are proceeding to plug and abandon the well," a Repsol spokesman told Reuters.

Repsol operated the well in a consortium with Norway's Statoil (STL.OL) and a unit of India's ONGC (ONGC.NS), drilling 4,500 meters into the sea bed of the Gulf of Mexico.

The disappointing result was a blow to the communist island's hopes of weaning itself from Venezuelan oil, but not a fatal one because Malaysia's state-owned Petronas will soon begin a second exploration well in Cuban waters in partnership with Russian's Gazprom Neft SIBB.MM.

"“It's a bust. It doesn't mean there's not oil out there (in Cuba's offshore), but it looks like they missed the reservoir," one industry expert said of the well, drilled in 5,600 feet of water more than 20 miles off Cuba's northern coast.

Repsol began drilling at the end of January after the Scarabeo 9, a massive Chinese-built drilling rig owned by Italy's Saipem (SPMI.MI) arrived at the island following a trip half way around the world from Singapore.

The rig was scheduled to be handed over soon to Petronas, which will sink a second well about 100 miles to the west of the current drill site.

Venezuela's PDVSA is tentatively scheduled to then get the rig for a third well.

Repsol drilled the only previous Cuba offshore well in 2004 and said it found oil but that it was not “"commercial." Reportedly, it has said it is undecided about drilling another Cuban well.

HIGH STAKES

For Cuba, the offshore exploration project has high stakes because the finding of oil could make it energy independent and possibly an oil exporter, which would aid its chronically troubled economy.

Cuba has said it may have at least 20 billion barrels of oil in its part of the Gulf of Mexico, although the U.S. Geological Survey has estimated a more modest 5 billion.

The island receives about 115,000 barrels of oil daily from socialist ally Venezuela, most of which goes toward meeting its internal demand and the rest for refining into oil products for Caribbean and central American nations.

In exchange, Venezuela receives the services of thousands of Cuban medical personnel and other professionals. It also is a heavy investor in numerous joint projects with Cuba.

The Cuba-Venezuela alliance is a product of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez' close relations with Cuban President Raul Castro and his older brother Fidel Castro, but Chavez is suffering from an undisclosed cancer that has required frequent treatment in Cuba and for which the prognosis is unknown.

He is standing for re-election in October, with his health problems looming as a major issue.

His defeat or death could put the government in the hands of an opposition party much less friendly to Cuba and the idea of giving it oil for services.

"“This dry hole is particularly a blow to Cuba, much more so than it is to the oil companies involved," said one diplomat who declined to be identified.

Dry holes in deep water generally cost at least $175 million, industry experts said, but Repsol will share that cost with its partners.

The company struggled for years to find a drilling rig that would not violate terms of the half-century old U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, which limits the use of U.S. technology.

It raised the ire of anti-Castro Cuban exiles for helping Cuba look for offshore oil and alarmed environmentalists for drilling a well in the straits of Florida, where a spill like BP's 2010 accident could cause massive oil damage to the state's coast and coral reefs.

Cuba, Oil & Embargo, Pt. Lost Count

From  Capitol Hill Cubans/

With Hugo Chavez's health (and oil subsidies) fading quickly, Argentina's untimely confiscation of Repsol-YPF (supported by Castro) and no news on the exploration front, the Castro regime's allies at the Center for International Policy (CIP) quickly put together a conference yesterday to regurgitate the same story-line about Cuba, oil and the embargo.

Thus, it gathered William Reilly (along with his conflict of interests), the Environmental Defense Fund (along with its hypocrisy) and the usual cast of characters to prod the news cycle.

And the media, of course, ran the same stories it has been running for a decade -- one of them even described the Center for International Policy (CIP) as a group "that advocates for foreign policy based on human rights."

(A prize to anyone who can find one human rights criticism of Castro by CIP and the head of its Cuba program, Wayne Smith).

So instead of posting one of today's stories on Cuba, oil and the embargo -- here's one from 2004.

After all, it's the same thing.   More >>

Cuba offshore drilling may hit oil reservoir soon

Orlando Sentinel (blog)

By William E. Gibson, Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — A Spanish company drilling an exploratory well north of Havana is within a week of reaching its target: an oil reservoir believed to lie under Cuban waters roughly 60 miles from Florida.

That’s the word from energy and environmental experts who met in Washington on Thursday to discuss plans to prevent or respond to a potential oil spill and protect South Florida’s delicate coastline.

The experts, who are in touch with Cuban officials and the Spanish company Repsol, say the drilling has been done in a slow and safe manner. But they warned that plans to respond to a potential oil spill are still hampered by the U.S. embargo of Cuba, which restricts the equipment and personnel that can be sent to prepare in case of a blowout.

“In every way, I think the Cuban approach to this is responsible and appropriate to the risk they are undertaking,” said William K Reilly, former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under former President George H.W. Bush.

But the U.S. government, he said, “has not interpreted its sanctions policy in a way that would clearly make available in advance the kind of technologies that would be required.”

That includes capping equipment needed to stop a major leak, he said. “That includes even the spare parts to a blowout preventer.”

He and several oil industry and environmental experts urged President Barack Obama to grant a general license for American companies to rush into Cuban waters without restriction to help stop a spill at its source.

The staging area for needed equipment should be in Cuba for a fast response, they said, but instead it is being assembled by Helix Energy Systems near Tampa. Some equipment will also be housed in South Florida.

The Coast Guard cannot enter Cuban-controlled waters without permission from the Cuban government. But Coast Guard officials say they are increasingly confident that the Cubans would allow them to help cap and contain a spill at the source.

The initial drilling is within a week of reaching the depth needed to tap an expected reservoir beneath Cuban waters, said Lee Hunt, past president of the International Association of Drilling Contractors.

“The desirability for a command center in a Cuban port for spill-response staging is very high,” Hunt said. “The likelihood of it happening? Nil.”

Cuba - Repsol, inversiones extranjeras y la familia Corleone de Biran

El Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de Raul Castro ha emitido una Declaración donde se solidariza y apoya la expropiacion por parte del gobierno argentino que preside Cristina Fernandez del 51% de las acciones de la compania petrolera YPF [Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales] que pertenecian a la espanola Repsol, la misma que en estos momentos realiza perforaciones en la zona economica exclusiva de Cuba en el Golfo de Mexico.

Punto 0 [Fidel] y Punto 1 [Raul] tenian varias opciones de respuestas que iban desde embocar una 3ra Declaracion de La Habana hasta "hacerse de la vista gorda". Luego el mayor interes se centraba en constatar cual seria la declinacion asumida y, aunque esperada, los tres parrafos de la breve nota muestran un balance sopesado pero cinico entre ambas posiciones extremas. 

Si en el primero de ellos se informa del hecho, ya en el segundo de los parrafos se enarbola el argumento "moral" que sostiene la decision argentina: "La compañía YPF, originalmente una empresa estatal argentina fue una de las tantas privatizadas y vendidas a un precio muy inferior al real, por el Presidente Carlos Saúl Menem, quien gobernara ese país austral de 1989 a 1999, en el marco de las medidas neoliberales que, a instancias y con la connivencia de los Estados Unidos, se impusieron a Nuestra América en ese periodo".

Para el tercer parrafo bastaria intercambiar los nombres de Cuba y Argentina para obtener la verdadera intencion de la declaracion y la vision del Neokaxtrizmo respecto a sus relaciones con los inversionistas extranjeros: "Cuba [Argentina] reitera su plena solidaridad con la República Argentina [de Cuba] y afirma que a dicha nación le asiste todo el derecho de ejercer la soberanía permanente sobre todos sus recursos naturales, incluidos los hidrocarburos. La amparan el Derecho Internacional y las decisiones que en tal sentido ha adoptado en numerosas ocasiones la Asamblea General de las Naciones Unidas".

Seguramente hoy habran detenido un desayuno sobresaltado Antonio Brufau presidente de Repsol, Jose Manuel Soria ministro de industrias y hasta el mismisimo Mariano Rajoy jefe del gobierno espanol, porque deben haber comprendido que los $750 millones que costo la construccion de la Scarabeo 9 y los $511 mil de sus costos operacionales diarios son propiedad de la familia Corleone de Biran tan pronto lo consideren conveniente. 

Bien harian en prestar cuidadosa atencion tanto politico norteamericano favorable a las inversiones norteamericanas en la isla carcel, tanto emigrado sentimentaloide y reunificador y todo inversionista avido de aplicar sus capitales en las reformas neokaxtriztas, antes que sea demasiado tarde y terminen como un Max Marambio, Sarkis Yacoubian y Cy Tokmakjian o como ... Repsol...porque como la mafia, lo unico que saben en Biran es robar.

Cuba no cree que la expropiación argentina a Repsol la afecte

Expansión.com/

La Habana, 17 abr (EFECOM).- Cuba no cree que la expropiación de la participación de la petrolera española Repsol en la argentina YPF afecte a los trabajos que esa compañía realiza en sus aguas en el Golfo de México, según ha afirmado hoy el viceministro primero de Comercio Exterior e Inversión Extranjera, Antonio Carricarte.

"No tengo una impresión de que eso pueda afectar", ha indicado Carricarte en rueda de prensa en La Habana ante una pregunta sobre la situación cubana por el contencioso que se ha abierto tras la expropiación argentina.

El viceministro ha señalado que Cuba se mantendrá "al tanto" pero ha dicho que actualmente "hay un trabajo normal", al referirse a las operaciones que realiza desde enero la plataforma petrolífera contratada por Repsol-YPF para perforar en las aguas cubanas del Golfo de México.

Cuba calcula que las reservas de petróleo de que dispone en su Zona Económica Exclusiva (ZEE) en el Golfo de México -cuya extensión ronda los 112.000 kilómetros cuadrados- es de 20.000 millones de barriles de crudo mientras que otras estimaciones sitúan la cifra entre 5.000 y 9.000 millones.

La ZEE de Cuba está dividida en 59 bloques, de los que 22 están contratados por varias compañías petroleras extranjeras como la venezolana PDVSA y la vietnamita PetroVietnam, además de Repsol-YPF.

La presidenta argentina, Cristina Fernández, decretó el lunes la intervención de YPF y envió al Congreso un proyecto de ley que establece la expropiación del 51 por ciento de las acciones que Repsol tiene en la compañía, un 57,4. EFECOM

Truth About Cuban Oil is Trickling Out

http://www.capitolhillcubans.com/

After endless debate and speculation about the Castro regime's latest offshore oil drilling partnership with Spain's Repsol (don't forget they unsuccessfully explored together in 2004), it seems some truths are finally trickling out.

For example, what happened to the specter of a catastrophic environmental disaster affecting Florida's coasts -- similar to that of the BP Macondo spill?

Well, the U.S. Coast Guard, along with several state, federal, county and wildlife agencies, have now concluded (after various simulation exercises):

"[T]hat even under intense weather conditions and high seas, oil from the damaged platform would take at least a week to reach the Middle Keys by way of the Gulf Stream. And by the time the oil got here, it would result in more of a cleanup nuisance than the type of ecological disaster seen on the shores of Louisiana in the aftermath of the DeepWater Horizon/BP oil spill two years ago this week [...]

Jim Jeansonne (of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) said the only way his team was able to get the fictional oil to come to the Middle Keys using computer models was to calculate sustained 34-knot winds for several days coming out of the southeast. He said it would be as if a tropical storm was off the Keys on the Atlantic side and did not move for days.

'The probability is low, which is good,' Jeansonne said.

He said the team also calculated scenarios where oil reached Key West and the Lower Keys, but he called the chances of that ever happening from a disaster on the Scarabeo 9 'even more remote.'"

In other words, it was all a ploy -- as in the past -- by the Castro regime's cheerleaders trying to "scare" Congress into lifting sanctions.

As a matter of fact, what is the biggest obstacle to Cuba's offshore oil exploration?

According to the Castro regime's own energy expert, Manuel Marrero Faz, the obstacle is what he described (during a hydrocarbon conference last week in Havana), "as the ruthless economic, financial and U.S. trade sanctions with Cuba."

Isn't that a shame.

And by the way, how is Repsol's latest exploration with the Castro regime going?

Apparently, not so good:

"Drilling of the first well in the long-awaited exploration of Cuba's offshore oilfields has gone slower than expected, but should be completed by mid-May, sources close to the project said.

They said drillers had encountered harder rock beneath the sea bed than expected, which combined with other minor problems, had slowed progress."

Those are very expensive problems.

First Cuba offshore well going slowly, mid-May finish seen

By Jeff Franks

HAVANA, April 13 (Reuters) - Drilling of the first well in the long-awaited exploration of Cuba's offshore oilfields has gone slower than expected, but should be completed by mid-May, sources close to the project said on Fri day.
They said drillers had encountered harder rock beneath the sea bed than expected, which combined with other minor problems, had slowed progress.
When drilling began on Feb. 1, Spanish oil giant Repsol YPF said the average deepwater well takes 60 days to complete, but that many drag on much longer, depending on conditions.
A Repsol spokesman could not confirm on Friday the projected mid-May completion date.
This well, which is in 5,600 feet (1,706 metres) of water off the communist-run island's northwest coast, is the first of five currently planned, Cuban officials say. More >>

Pemex podrá explorar y explotar en Cuba

(Notimex) — Pemex Exploración y Producción (PEP) y la Unión Cuba-Petróleo (Cupet) signaron este jueves una Carta de Intención para analizar distintas alternativas de colaboración en materia de exploración y explotación de hidrocarburos en la Zona Económica Exclusiva (ZEE) cubana.

El documento incluye una hoja de ruta para evaluar futuras colaboraciones de PEP, filial de Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex), en materia de exploración y explotación de hidrocarburos en territorio cubano.

Como resultado de ese acuerdo entre las petroleras estatales, ambas naciones realizarán en fecha próxima un taller en la capital cubana, en el cual PEP tendrá la opción de analizar las distintas alternativas de colaboración, ya sea en proyectos en desarrollo o en nuevas áreas de oportunidad, expone la Secretaría de Energía (Sener).

En tanto, el titular de la Sener, Jordy Herrera, suscribió un Memorándum de Entendimiento en materia energética con el ministro de Industria Básica de Cuba, Tomás Benítez, en el marco de la visita oficial del presidente Felipe Calderón Hinojosa a ese país.

En un comunicado, la dependencia mexicana informó que la cooperación establecida bajo este Memorándum considera el intercambio de expertos, tecnología, información y mejores prácticas, así como realización de pasantías, capacitaciones y talleres.

Prevé también la implementación de proyectos de investigación y desarrollo de metodologías de planeación estratégica en materia de hidrocarburos, electricidad, eficiencia energética, energías renovables, desarrollo profesional y conservación energética.

Breaking news: Possible small oil spill in Cuba's Oil ring [satellite image]

From  Mother Jones/ By Julia Whitty

In February Spanish oil giant Repsol YPF began drilling its first well in Cuba's offshore oilfields in the Florida Straits. Swift currents run through this deep body of water connecting the Gulf of Mexico with the Atlantic Ocean.

The US Geological Survey has estimated the site of this well, the North Cuba Basin, contains 5.5 billion barrels of petroleum liquids and 9.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, almost all in the deep water. From Reuters:

The newly built, high-tech rig is operating in 5,600 feet of water, or what the oil industry calls "ultra-deep water," in the Straits of Florida, which separate Cuba from its longtime ideological foe, the United States. Sources close to the project said such wells generally take about 60 days to complete. Repsol, which is operating the rig in a consortium with Norway's Statoil and ONGC Videsh, a unit of India's Oil and Natural Gas Corp, has said it will take several months to determine the results of the exploration.The well is the first of at least three that will be drilled in Cuban waters with the Scarabeo 9, which was built in China and is owned by Saipem, a unit of Italian oil company Eni. 

 

Detail identified by SkyTruth from a satellite radar image of the Florida Straits. "We infer the large bright spot is the Scarabeo-9 semisubmersible drill rig:" Image courtesy European Space Agency.

Now SkyTruth believes they've located the site of the well and the Scarabeo-9 drilling rig in this European satellite image (above):

This Envisat ASAR image, shot at 11:43 pm local time on March 30, shows a trio of very bright spots about 17 miles north-northwest of Havana.  We think the largest of these spots, with an interesting cross-shaped "ringing" pattern often seen on radar images of big, boxy metal objects, is the Scarabeo-9 rig.  The other two spots may be crew vessels or work boats. The location marked in orange is a report we just got through the SkyTruth Alerts that a small possible oil slick was sighted nearby during a US Coast Guard overflight yesterday morning. We don't think this is anything alarming; it's probably just some of the typical oily crud you'll get from an active drilling operation at sea.

 

Dolphins jumping through oily water from BP's Deepwater Horizon blowout, Gulf of Mexico, July 2010: NOAA.

It's unnerving to think of the downsides of drilling so deep there's no hope of managing a spill without disastrous side-effects. It's unnerving to think of the long-term effects of such spills.
I recently wrote of the fate of the Gulf of Mexico's dolphins—particularly the slow and painful demise of the Barataria Bay, Louisiana, population—in the aftermath of BP's epic fustercluck.
Now NRDC highlights what we know so far about the ongoing unusual mortality event underway with dolphins in the Gulf:

• The die-off has persisted for 25 months.  
• The longest die-off prior to this lasted 17 months and was directly linked to a red tide.
• More than 600 bottlenose dolphins have been stranded in the BP spill region since the disaster.
• Roughly 95 percent of those have been found dead.
• Animals whose bodies are recovered in a die-off are the tip of an iceberg, since only 1-in-50 to 1-in-250 marine mammals that die at sea are recovered on Gulf shores. 

So 600 dead bottlenose dolphins could scale up to between 30,000 and 250,000 dead marine mammals since BP's Deepwater Horizon blowout.
------------------------------------------------
More from  SKYTRUTH


The location marked in orange is a report we just got through the SkyTruth Alerts that a small possible oil slick was sighted nearby during a US Coast Guard overflight yesterday morning. We don't think this is anything alarming; it's probably just some of the typical oily crud you'll get from an active drilling operation at sea, that we observe on a regular basis in the Gulf of Mexico with our Gulf Monitoring Consortium partners. 

For those who want to know, here is our analysis of the location of the Scarabeo-9 drill rig based on this radar image.  If anyone can confirm this is indeed the location of the rig, please let us know:

 23.374496° North latitude / 82.492283° West longitude

Here's a zoomed-out look, showing the coastline of Cuba and the city of Havana:

Envisat ASAR radar satellite image courtesy European Space Agency.

   And here's the big picture, showing Cuba, Key West and the rig location:

We'll keep watching this area.  Many people are concerned about the potential of a major spill from this site affecting the east coast of Florida and the southeastern US, and the lack of oil spill response coordination and cooperation between Cuba and the United Sates. 

Muy optimista ministro cubano sobre la prospeccion petrolera en el Golfo de Mexico

aunque continuan sin revelarse las labores de la scarabeo 9.

------------------------------------- 

La emergente industria del petróleo es ya un importante factor de la economía cubana, afirmó la víspera en La Habana el especialista Manuel Marrero, del Ministerio de Minas y Energía de la isla.

Al intervenir en la trigésimo tercera Convención de la Unión Panamericana de Asociaciones de Ingenieros (UPADI) con sede en el Palacio de las Convenciones, Marrero subrayó que es posible incrementar sustancialmente la producción de petróleo y gas en la Zona Económica Exclusiva de la isla en el golfo de México.

Pronosticó el especialista que para 2012 y 2013 serán perforados como mínimo cinco pozos de exploración en aguas profundas y ultra profundas, y resaltó que el sector de la isla en el golfo está muy cerca de zonas petroleras ya “maduras”, por lo que consideró posible descubrir grandes yacimientos de petróleo y gas.

Mas en Radio Rebelde >>

Negocia Pemex búsqueda y explotación de petróleo en Cuba

Gerardo Arreloa, La Jornada

La Habana, 8 de abril. Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) podría entrar por primera vez a operar en forma directa en Cuba, al contratar lotes para la búsqueda de crudo en aguas profundas del Golfo de México, en un acuerdo que se negocia para suscribirse cuando esté aquí el presidente Felipe Calderón esta semana.
La empresa mexicana ya tiene intereses en la isla por medio de su participación de 9.49 por ciento en la hispano-argentina Repsol-YPF, pero la nueva opción le daría acceso directo a la zona económica exclusiva (ZEE) de Cuba en el Golfo de México, según fuentes que están al tanto de las negociaciones.
Calderón Hinojosa tiene previsto llegar aquí el miércoles 11, para una visita de 24 horas, en la que se entrevistará con el presidente Raúl Castro.
De firmarse el contrato con Cuba Petróleo (Cupet), el monopolio estatal del sector, aún pasarían meses o años de pruebas antes de una eventual explotación, pero Pemex se insertaría en una operación que reta de frente al bloqueo de Estados Unidos.
Cambiaría la capacidad financiera de la isla
Sectores de la industria petrolera estadunidense han pedido excepciones legales al bloqueo para vender suministros a la isla, una vez que Repsol perfora en la zona. Más aún: un hallazgo de explotación viable representaría un cambio dramático en la capacidad financiera de Cuba y en su horizonte económico.
En caso de llegar a perforar, Pemex tendría su retaguardia en el puerto de Mariel –en obras de ampliación y modernización–, para convertirlo en punta de lanza del comercio regional.
Emisarios de Pemex, de la cancillería y de la Secretaría de Energía de México han viajado a La Habana al menos desde noviembre pasado para explorar el caso. La oferta cubana sería idéntica a las que presentaron a otras nueve compañías extranjeras que ya tienen lotes contratados.
El intento de explotar la potencial riqueza petrolera cubana en el Golfo de México empezó en la década pasada y los primeros interesados obtuvieron los lotes más próximas a la costa. Las áreas disponibles para Pemex están en un triángulo cercano a las zonas marinas bajo jurisdicción de Estados Unidos y de México.
La oferta cubana a Pemex es vieja. Se remonta al principio del gobierno de Vicente Fox, hace una década, pero la opción se cerró por la crisis de las relaciones bilaterales. Un anterior intento de que Pemex entrara a Cuba también fracasó. Fue en 1994, cuando los dos gobiernos pactaron la modernización de la refinería cubana de Cienfuegos, de fabricación soviética. Los trabajos nunca se iniciaron y el compromiso se deshizo dos años más tarde, cuando ambas partes lo calificaron de “inviable”.
Petróleos de Venezuela Sociedad Anónima (Pdvsa) modernizó la refinería, que ahora está en ampliación, para llevar su capacidad de 65 mil barriles diarios a 150 mil en 2014. De consumarse esta vez el negocio, Petróleos Mexicanos se convertirá en la décima empresa extranjera que contrata lotes de la ZEE cubana, después de Sonangop (Angola), Compañía Nacional de Petróleo de China, ONGC Videsh (India), Petronas (Malasia), Statoil (Noruega), Gazprom (Rusia), Petróleos de Venezuela (Pdvsa) y Petrovietnam, además de Repsol-YPF.
De esas empresas, Pdvsa es la que tiene lotes más cercanos a las aguas mexicanas, un cuadrilátero cuya extremo está a sólo 100 kilómetros de Cancún. Otras dos compañías se retiraron sin perforar en la ZEE cubana: la canadiense Sherritt y la brasileña Petrobras.
Con una producción terrestre y de aguas someras estancada en cerca de 60 mil barriles diarios de petróleo, que junto con el gas cubre la mitad del consumo nacional, Cuba mira al Golfo de México como su única alternativa para elevar a fondo la extracción de crudo. La isla importa de Venezuela la otra mitad de sus necesidades –más un excedente para refinar y revender–, para un total de unos 113 mil barriles diarios.
Repsol-YPF perforó el primer pozo en aguas profundas cubanas en 2004 y encontró crudo de calidad, pero sin opciones de explotación comercial. La misma empresa reanudó la búsqueda en enero pasado, esta vez en sociedad con Statoil y ONGC Videsh.
Para acatar el bloqueo estadunidense, el consorcio tiene que alquilar la plataforma Scarabeo-9, fabricada en China y Singapur para la italiana Eni Spa’s, con menos de 10 por ciento de componentes estadunidenses. Hasta ahora no hay reportes de los resultados de esa perforación, pero la plataforma es visible desde la costa de La Habana y se puede apreciar que ya mudó su ubicación desde un punto en el mar frente al oeste de la capital hacia otra posición ante la zona central de la ciudad.
Producción a la medida
A precios actuales, la Scarabeo-9 cuesta 511 mil dólares de arrendamiento diario, más que el promedio comercial de una de su tipo, debido a su producción “a la medida”, según el investigador de la Universidad de Texas Jorge Piñón, ex ejecutivo de la petrolera Amoco. El experto calculó que en ocho años la inversión extranjera en la ZEE cubana llega a los 500 millones de dólares.
La ZEE de Cuba tiene 112 mil kilómetros cuadrados y fue delimitada en 1977, al pactarse las fronteras marinas con Estados Unidos y México. No hay un cálculo de reservas, pero Cupet estima que los recursos recuperables rondan por lo menos los 20 mil millones de barriles de crudo.
Cupet aplica en este caso la fórmula “de producción compartida”. No hay licitación, sino designación directa del contratista. La vigencia del contrato es de 30 años para petróleo y 35 para gas, y se ejecuta en dos tramos (exploración y explotación). El primero se divide en subperiodos y en cada uno la empresa extranjera puede decidir si continúa o no.
La forma de compartir la producción y el porcentaje que se destina a la recuperación de la inversión se acuerda caso por caso. Según el esquema, Cuba tiene prioridad para comprar el petróleo que se produzca.

Cuba fija nuevas reglas aduaneras para sector petróleo

Leer >>

International Association of Drilling Contractors on Cuba oil drilling

 Read >>

Presidente de Repsol habria visitado Cuba

De acuerdo con un despacho de americaeconomica.com   Antonio Brufau, presidente de Repsol habria visitado Cuba el pasado mes de febrero. En su recorrido habria incluido la plataforma de prospeccion petrolera Scarabeo 9. Mas >>

Reversal of Fortune: Venezuela Could Be Biggest Beneficiary of New Cuban Oil

NASDAQ/ Pierre Bertrand

Which OPEC member could benefit hugely from Cuba's nascent offshore oil industry?

Venezuela.

As Cuba starts its first offshore drilling and foreign companies eye more prospects, the Latin American republic led by President Hugo Chavez may be among the biggest winners.

The reason is that after years of subsidizing the island nation of former president Fidel Castro and now his brother Raul, a Cuba that starts making money from oil might slowly wean itself off Venezuelan aid.

Cuba now refines about 50,000 barrels of oil a day, about a third of its requirements. Venezuela makes up the difference for free, said Jorge Pinon, the former president of Amoco Oil Latin America and an expert on the Cuban oil industry. Pinon now is a research fellow at the Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy at the University of Texas.

Instead of cash, Cuba pays back its Latin American neighbor by sending doctors, teachers and other skilled labor in a sort of international bartering system, Pinon said in an interview.

Cuba may have vast oil reserves, mostly offshore. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates the island has reserves equivalent to 941 million barrels of oil.

Oil-hungry China has extended a line of credit to Cuba for the purpose of expanding the country's refining capacity to 150,000 barrels a day. That expansion should be completed by 2015, Pinon said. That would be just in time, Cuban authorities hope, for the Spanish-contracted Scarabeo-9 oil rig to find and start producing oil offshore.

Repsol, Spain's biggest oil company, is using that rig to drill only 56 miles from the Florida coast. The rig itself was built in China.

An expanded and improved Soviet-era refinery in Cienfuegos on Cuba's southern coast, previously refurbished by Venezuela, is expected to enable the country to meet its domestic demand. That would immediately benefit the Chavez regime because the oil would be sent to Venezuela for sale on world markets.

With the extra revenue, Venezuela could start paying the Cuban government in cash for the skilled labor exchanges between the two countries, Pinon said.

Despite its resources, Cuba will be unable to export much of its refined or crude oil because most of the world's refineries have some form of business relationship with U.S. oil companies, Pinon explained. To maintain those working relationships, the U.S. embargo against the communist regime extends well beyond the Western Hemisphere.

"On the assumption that Cuba produces more oil than it actually needs, that will become a challenge," Pinon said. He added that Cuba could likely find markets for its excess crude in Venezuela and China.

Being far away from markets, however, such trading wouldn't be economical, considering a country's oil refining infrastructure is set up in such a way that oil is designed to flow out of the country -- not back in.

In Tuesday trading the price of crude was up a nickel to $104.05 a barrel.

Read more: http://community.nasdaq.com/News/2012-02/reversal-of-fortune-venezuela-could-be-biggest-beneficiary-of-new-cuban-oil.aspx?storyid=120709#ixzz1mSY0v0Ww

U.S. Watches Closely As Oil Drilling Begins Off Cuba

by Greg Allen

Javier Galeano/AP Fishermen work near the Scarabeo-9 oil rig off the coast of Cuba. U.S. officials are concerned about the potential impact in the case of a spill.

There are big plans for oil exploration in the Caribbean, not far off the coast of Florida. A Spanish company recently began drilling in Cuban waters — just 55 miles from Key West.

The well is the first of several exploratory wells planned in Cuba and the Bahamas. The drilling has officials and researchers in Florida scrambling to make plans for how they'll respond in case of a spill.

The U.S. currently doesn't allow any drilling for oil off its Atlantic coast or in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. One reason is what's at stake. Florida's tourism-based economy depends on its beaches, fishing and clear Caribbean water.

Environmental Concerns

The U.S. ban on drilling off of Florida, however, doesn't affect America's Caribbean neighbors. The exploratory well being drilled off of Cuba has many here concerned, including people like Richard Dodge. Dodge is the dean of Nova Southeastern University's Oceanographic Center in Dania Beach, near Fort Lauderdale, and what he's really concerned about is coral.

At the school, Dodge and his graduate students raise staghorn coral in outdoor saltwater tanks. Live coral grow in the crystal-clear water, some just finger length.

"These are relatively new ones that we're starting out," Dodge says. "But over here, these are ones we'll be transplanting to the wild."

In another tank, large branches of coral will soon be used to help restore damaged reefs.

Florida is home to more than three-quarters of the nation's coral reefs — and they haven't been doing so well. Development and warming oceans have already weakened many.

On a map, Dodge points out the location of what he believes is an even bigger potential threat — the spot where Cuba has approved offshore oil drilling. "The site that will be drilled," he says, "is only about 50 miles from Key West."

The rig drilling off Cuba's northern coast is operating in water that is more than a mile deep. But it's not the depth that concerns Dodge. In the case of a blowout, it's the operation's proximity to the Gulf Stream.

"We're worried that it could get into that stream fast and therefore, within days, impact our coastal ecosystem and coastline," Dodge says. A spill could potentially affect hundreds of miles of beaches, mangroves and estuaries from the Keys to Palm Beach.  More >>

#NASDAQ on Cuba's offshore oil drill

NASDAQ/ Pierre Bertrand

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.

Read more: http://community.nasdaq.com/News/2012-02/cuban-oil-countrys-ambitions-endanger-florida-coral-reefs-and-coast.aspx?storyid=119873#ixzz1lzggamdP

Plataforma petrolera en aguas de Cuba presenta problemas

Leer en el  Nuevo Herald >>

Tracking a potential Cuba oil spill

Tampa Bay Times/ By Robert H. Weisberg*

Numerous articles continue to be written about oil exploration off the coast of Cuba. Some federal officials, while discussing potential spill mitigation, claim that the swift currents of the Gulf Stream will protect South Florida by carrying most oil away before it could hit the beaches. Is this correct, or might a threat to South Florida's beaches exist, given a drilling mishap?
The Gulf Stream indeed is swift, but if it isolated Florida from Cuba, then how did so many Cuban rafters reach the shoreline between Miami and Palm Beach over the past 50 years? To address this and the potential for oil to reach the Florida coastline, it is important to consider the Gulf Stream in its entirety.
There are two primary components of flow. The first, driven by the large-scale winds over the Atlantic Ocean, is geostrophic. The second is driven by local winds. Neglecting eddies, the geostrophic part alone would tend to isolate Cuba from Florida because it would be difficult for surface oil picked up on the Cuban side of the Gulf Stream to traverse across the region of maximum speed to the Florida side. However, the local wind-driven part can achieve this.
The geostrophic part is a balance between two forces, the pressure difference across the Gulf Stream and the Coriolis force by the Earth's rotation. The result is a flow that nearly parallels the coastline. The local wind driven part is also a balance between two forces, the friction of the wind on the sea surface and the Coriolis force by the Earth's rotation. The result is a net transport of water directed to the right of the wind.
This Ekman transport, named after the discovering scientist, explains why sea level is higher than the normal high tide level on Florida's East Coast under northerly winds and lower than the normal high tide level under southerly winds. The reason is that water under the influence of northerly winds is driven toward Florida's East Coast. The converse occurs along Florida's West Coast. Thus flooding of low-lying areas on the East Coast tends to occur after the passage of strong weather fronts when the winds are northerly, whereas this tends to occur on the West Coast in advance of the front when the winds are southerly.
Given this conceptual discussion, it is possible to simulate the movement of oil that may be spilled on the surface using a computer model that contains these physics (geostrophic and Ekman motions). One particularly suited for the task is run by the Navy along with academic partners.
By downloading the modeled velocity fields and inserting virtual particles indicative of surface oil, my associates and I can track where the oil might go in time and space. For illustrative purposes, we used January 2012. Neutrally buoyant particles were distributed about an exploration site claimed to be 22 miles north of Havana, and new particles were seeded every three hours to mimic a continual release of oil.
Two examples are provided, one for a period of time when virtual particles encountered East Coast beaches about five to seven days after release, the other for a period of time when they did not. The differences are due to the local winds during these week-long simulation intervals.
Recognizing that weather fronts regularly transit the Florida peninsula, with southerlies on the leading side and northerlies on the trailing side, and that the interval between successive fronts is days to a week or so, we can expect that a prolonged spill would likely bring oil to South Florida beaches. Regardless of these simulations, simply recall the tar on South Florida beaches in the 1970s before the Clean Water Act restricted offshore bilge pumping.
Whereas a vibrant economy requires energy, risks are inherent to oil exploration and production. Such risks increase with deepwater drilling in swift currents, and the swift Gulf Stream regularly transits the deepwater region north of Cuba. It is unfortunate that we were unable to surmount the political and diplomatic issues pertaining to the present oil exploration in Cuban waters because once the oil potential was identified years ago, drilling was inevitable. Without readily achievable energy alternatives to hydrocarbons, other than nuclear, it is ever more important for the United States to adopt a sound energy policy.
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*Robert H. Weisberg, distinguished university professor, is a professor of physical oceanography in the College of Marine Science at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg.

Would the Gulf Stream protect South Florida?

Cuba is exploring for oil off its shores. With that in mind, USF professor Robert H. Weisberg used computer models to track the path of a theoretical spill: Would the fast-moving Gulf Stream protect Florida? His model, using real-life conditions for two weeks last month, plots the trajectories of "virtual particles" from an oil exploration site 22 miles north of Havana. Each dot represents a particle seeded within the surface velocity field of a U.S. Navy global ocean circulation model. The color coding indicates the time in days after the particle was seeded near the exploration site. Thus, on the first map, showing Jan. 10-17, virtual particles would reach the Miami to Palm Beach coastline within five to six days. On the second map, Jan. 15-22, the spill skirts the coast. If a spill were long-lasting, the chances are great it would hit South Florida shores.

A Coordinated Modeling Approach in Support of Oil Spill Tracking ...

Spain's Repsol begins drilling offshore Cuba

By Jeff Franks

Havana | Thu Feb 2

(Reuters) - Spanish oil company Repsol YPF has begun drilling the first well in Cuba's long-awaited exploration of offshore oilfields that the communist country says hold both billions of barrels of oil and the key to greater prosperity, industry sources told Reuters.

The massive Scarabeo 9 drilling rig, which arrived in Cuban waters two weeks ago, began drilling into the sea floor about 30 miles northwest of Havana on Tuesday night, the sources said.

A Repsol spokesman said the company could not comment on "operational details."

The newly built, high-tech rig is operating in 5,600 feet of water, or what the oil industry calls "ultra-deep water," in the Straits of Florida, which separate Cuba from its longtime ideological foe, the United States.

Sources close to the project said such wells generally take about 60 days to complete.

Repsol, which is operating the rig in a consortium with Norway's Statoil and ONGC Videsh, a unit of India's Oil and Natural Gas Corp, has said it will take several months to determine the results of the exploration.

The well is the first of at least three that will be drilled in Cuban waters with the Scarabeo 9, which was built in China and is owned by Saipem, a unit of Italian oil company Eni.

Sources have said that Repsol will drill the first well and then the rig will go to Malaysia's Petronas in partnership with Russia's Gazprom Neft and then back to Repsol for the third well.

It is not clear what happens after that, although some sources have said Repsol, which is leasing the Scarabeo 9 from Saipem at a rate said to be more than $500,000 a day, will move the rig to Brazil for exploration there.

Cuba has said it may have 20 billion barrels of oil in its northern waters, which are its part of the Gulf of Mexico. The U.S. Geological Survey has estimated it may have 5 billion barrels of oil, but its study does not include the entire Cuban gulf zone.

(Additional reporting by Jane Sutton in Miami; Editing by Bob Burgdorfer)