Cuba Drills for Oil Off Florida(Gracias,America)

The Washington Times ^ | July 24, 2006 | Patrice Hill

[kellynla]

Cuba is drilling for oil 60 miles off the coast of Florida with help from China, Canada and Spain even as Congress struggles to end years of deadlock over drilling for what could be a treasure trove of offshore oil and gas.

Republicans in Congress have tried repeatedly in the past decade to open up the outer continental shelf to exploration, and Florida's waters hold some of the most promising prospects for major energy finds. Their efforts have been frustrated by opposition from Florida, California and environmental-minded legislators from both parties.

Florida's powerful tourism and booming real estate industries fear that oil spills could cost them business. Lawmakers from the state are so adamantly opposed to drilling that they have bid to extend the national ban on drilling activity from 100 miles to as far as 250 miles offshore, encompassing the island of Cuba.

Cuba is exploring in its half of the 90-mile-wide Straits of Florida within the internationally recognized boundary as well as in deep-water areas of the Gulf of Mexico. The impoverished communist nation is eager to receive any economic boost that would come from a major oil find.

"They think there's a lot of oil out there. We'll see," said Fadi Kabboul, a Venezuelan energy minister. He noted that the oil fields Cuba is plumbing do not respect national borders. Any oil Cuba finds and extracts could siphon off fuel that otherwise would be available to drillers off the Florida coast and oil-thirsty Americans.

Canadian companies Sherritt International Co. and Pebercan Inc. already are pumping more than 19,000 barrels of crude each day from the Santa Cruz, Puerto Escondido, Canasi and other offshore fields in the straits about 90 miles from Key West,

[kellynla]

"That compounds the frustration for U.S. oil companies and other businesses that have lobbied to open up the estimated 45 billion barrels in oil reserves and 232 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves in banned drilling areas of the Gulf -- enough to fuel millions of cars and heat millions of homes for decades."

[Darkwolf377]

I sure hope the libs condemn Cuba for adding more pollution to our small, fragile planet.

Liberals WOULD condemn Cuba if it ever did anything wrong, I'm sure of that.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

if the United States isn't going to use oil off the coast of Florida, then it seems other countries will, especially when there is another country bordering the area.

China and Japan are in a conflict over oil, too. if the Cubans suck up the oil from their side of the border, they could also be draining the oil from the American side. (switch Cubans and Americans for Chinese and Japanese for the Asian one).

[stockstrader]

Let's see here. Cuba can drill and 'sell our own oil' right back to us???
Thanks, Congress!!!

And, of course, we all know that Cuba's drilling will be done with the utmost care--to include advanced 'state of the art' drilling equipment and the most modern techniques to ensure that environmental concerns are given the absolute highest priority. (s/off)

[Fair Paul]

Cuba can do no wrong, to a liberal they are an ally

[snowman_returns]

Cuba currently drills off the North coast near the road from Havana to Varadero and the stench at night from sulphur is very uncomfortable even with hotel windows shut, this must have put off many tourists from going back, it certainly has me.

From what I know all they can extract at the moment is heavy crude which has limited usage due to high sulphur.

The irony with Cuba is it promotes itself as an eco lovers paradise; still I'm sure the liberal leftys like to believe it..

[goldstategop]

The Left supports communism. But they'll be damned if Americans get oil off our coasts - they're "too greedy."

(Go Israel, Go! Slap 'Em, Down Hezbullies.)

[saganite]

Personally I hope the Cubans discover a monster field out there. I would love to cut out the press release and send it to the Florida Senators.

[Kakaze]

" The bill's authors are calculating that the public will support drilling more when people are able to share in the revenues. That is the case in Alaska, for example, where drilling faces little opposition because each resident receives a prorated check for thousands of dollars in oil royalties each year."

Crimoney, why can't congress just do whats right, instead of turning every damn thing they do into a check writing social program.

How about we drill for oil ( responisbly ) just because it's our and we need it.

With all the fraud that goes with existing programs I can just imagine the nightmare of trying now to redistribute "dirty" oil revenues to every illegal in these states too.

[jch10]

Nrither of them have the backbone nor love of their country to listen to you. Sen. Martinez, who I worked hard for, will not even respond to my calls and letters and we all know Sen. Nelson is a dim who does as he is told.

[ffusco]

The rig should be confiscated, or destroyed.

[WhiteGuy]

Republicans in Congress have tried repeatedly in the past decade to open up the outer continental shelf to exploration

Oh yeah, they "tried."

BS - 6 years of gop control, a complete lack of ANY energy policy, and record prices at the pump.

The result? record profits for the oil industry.

[samtheman]

Another Big Enigma for the ever-troubled liberal "brain":

1. Everything Castro does is good.
2. Drilling for oil is always bad.

(What to do? What to think? What to say?)

[Just mythoughts]

This reminds me of what ticked old Saddam off and invaded Kuwait back in the early 90's. The claim of 'slant' drilling into Saddam's pool of oil started that Gulf War.

Now I have not heard the Saddamites (supporters of Saddam) demand we the US defend our pools of oil.

[defenderSD]

You may find this hard to believe, but from the perspective of the US consumer it makes no difference whether Cuba or American oil companies produce the oil, as long as Cuba sells the oil into the world market. The same amount of oil goes into the world's economy even if Cuba sells the oil to China. Oil is easily transported around the world and so more production by Cuba helps to bring down the price of oil that US refineries have to pay and ultimately the price of gasoline in the US.

Now if you're a shareholder of a US oil company that wants to drill offshore in Florida but cannot and loses that production to Cuba, then you take a hit to your wallet in lost profits. But it makes no difference ultimately to the consumer at the gas pump who produces the oil, as long as they are an efficient producer and they get all the oil that can be recovered out of the field.

Chavez has finally figured this out, I think...lol. He made a statement a few weeks ago, something like "If Iran is attacked, then no oil for anybody from Venezuela." He finally understands that he can't keep oil produced in his country out of the US. If he sells it to somebody else, that country is just going to turn around and sell it to the US (perhaps secretly), because it's less costly to ship it to America.

[sportutegrl]

Here's my solution: let every state hold an election to decide if they will allow offshore drilling. Interior states can decide if they will allow oil refineries. Those that vote no will be forced to pay all of the federal gas tax, while those that allow drilling/refineries will have their federal tax burden borne by the naysayers.

[toddlintown]

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Next we'll (proxies) be buying oil from Cuba.

[ffusco]

Oil reserves in oil importing nations should benefit citizens of that country, consider them part of the strategic reserve.

[defenderSD]

That's a good point. The US Treasury loses some oil lease revenue if Cuba produces the oil, perhaps quite a lot of money on a big oil field, but it makes no difference to the US consumer. If the oil field is really big, this could cost us more in higher federal taxes over the long run if Cuba produces the oil instead of us.

[DustyMoment]

Florida's powerful tourism and booming real estate industries fear that oil spills could cost them business. Lawmakers from the state are so adamantly opposed to drilling that they have bid to extend the national ban on drilling activity from 100 miles to as far as 250 miles offshore, encompassing the island of Cuba.

An often repeated lie by the enviro-nazis. Oil spills that have occurred in the last 15 - 20 years have been the result of oil tankers, NOT oil rigs. Given the number of oil rigs broken loose from their moorings by Hurricane Katrina, if those rigs were still the primary source of oil spills, the Gulf coast would STILL be cleaning up the mess!

Instead, nothing happened as a result of the oil rigs being pulled away from their moorings by Katrina - and THAT should be the reason to go drill in the Gulf and on the coasts, rather than buying oil and gas from Cuba.

How stupid can we be??