[wvns] Cuba Becoming an Oil Exporter
New refinery to turn long-time importer Cuba into oil exporter
By Carlos Batista
Updated May 14, 2007
http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/article_3480.shtml
HAVANA, Cuba (Caribbean Net News) - A modernized oil refinery is set
to go on line in December 2007, official media reported, in a shift
due to turn import-dependent Cuba into an oil exporter.
Overhauled with capital from a joint Venezuelan-Cuban company, the
Cienfuegos refinery in south-central Cuba will meet the Caribbean
country's own demands, and earmark 9,000 barrels of gasoline a day for
export, Venezuela's communications and information ministry said in a
release circulated here.
Vice President Carlos Lage confirmed the facility was set to start
operations in December, the Juventud Rebelde newspaper reported.
Vice President Lage said the refinery would process 65,000 barrels per
day of petroleum by late this year or early 2008, the paper said.
Cuban authorities in late March said Havana was optimistic and it
could soon see a breakthrough in exploiting major oil reserves.
That could mark a sea of change that would see the cash-strapped
regime become a flush energy exporter, with ample funding to
perpetuate itself.
At the moment, Cuba gets cut-rate oil from Venezuela, its closest
international ally and most important economic partner.
The Spanish multinational is just one of the firms elbowing in, along
with Norsk Hydro, Canada's Sherrit, Malaysia's Petronas and India's
Videsh.
Cuba has divided its exclusive zone into 59 blocs for exploration and
production, 16 of which are contracted out. Repsol has six, Sherrit
and Petronas have four each, while Videsh has two.
Repsol in 2005 was the first to break ground in the area, but the
company determined the crude it discovered was not commercially
exploitable at that time.
In 2006, Cuba produced about 3.9 million tonnes of oil, seven times
more than 1990 when the former East bloc collapsed, depriving Cuba of
its long-accustomed supply of cut-rate Soviet crude.
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