Cuba’s Energy Independence To Remain Elusive In Short Term

Cuba is unlikely to attain energy independence anytime over the next five years, said energy experts on Monday, after the nation’s latest attempt to drill for oil offshore proved to be a bust, while no further exploratory activity is expected in the short term.

Cuba is unlikely to attain energy independence anytime over the next five years, said energy experts on Monday, after the nation’s latest attempt to drill for oil offshore proved to be a bust, while no further exploratory activity is expected in the short term.

In a report by the Associated Press, Cuban state oil company Cubapetroleo announced on Monday that Malaysia’s Petronas and Gazpromneft of Russia would be abandoning efforts to drill for oil off the western province of Pinar del Rio, as a geological formation was preventing any oil and gas to be extracted.

Despite the fact that there was an “active petroleum system” in the area, the analysis by Petronas and Gazpromneft found that the rocks were “very compact and do not have the capacity to deliver significant quantities of petroleum and gas,” said Cubapetroleo in a statement published in the Communist Party newspaper Granma.

[quote]“It cannot be qualified as a commercial discovery,” the company added.[/quote]

Disappointingly for Cuba, this was the third failed well in three attempts that the country had made to search for oil in the Gulf of Mexico, which they believe to contain over 20 billion barrels of oil.

Earlier in May, Spanish oil company Repsol also announced that it was ending all oil exploration efforts in Cuba, after spending more than $100 million drilling only to hit a dry well.

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This leaves just PDVSA of Venezuela and Sonangol of Angola to drill in Cuban waters, though neither company has indicated that they would return anytime in the near future.

As such for the short-term at least, the government of Cuba will have to rely on its socialist ally Venezuela for all its energy needs, under an oil-for-services deal that sends Cuba about 115,000 barrels of oil daily.

Some analysts have warned though that this source of energy is dependent on whether Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez wins his re-election campaign in October.

“A lot of people have been very naive in thinking that an oil-rich Cuba was going to materialize overnight, and that is not the case,” said Jorge Pinon, the former president of Amoco Oil Latin America and a leading expert on Cuba’s energy prospect, to AP.

[quote]”You don’t just turn the faucet on overnight,” he added[/quote]

Pinon also said that even if Cuba did finally find offshore oil, producing and refining it would take years.

“The bottom line is that Cuba is not going to get any economic benefit from an oil find any time soon. This is a long-term exercise – it’s going to take a long time to get results,” Pinon told Reuters.