John Lennon's 'Imagine' will always be SUPREME. Yankee imperialists and Miami gusanos “Imagine” are based on idiotic wishful thinking and pure hatred

From: The Washington Post:

The Deepwater Horizon accident, the largest maritime spill ever, involved a massive response by the U.S. government to contain what experts concluded was a preventable disaster caused by misjudgments by three major oil drilling companies: BP, Halliburton and Transocean.

“Now imagine something like that happening in the waters between two countries that don’t even talk to each other,” said Jorge Pinon, a former president of Amoco Oil Latin America and now a research fellow at the Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy at the University of Texas.

JG: American imperialists are going NUTS in regards to Cuba's oil exploration.

REPSOL acerca a Cuba y EEUU

La petrolera iniciará una exploración en aguas profundas del golfo de México

El proyecto supone un avance en el diálogo entre Washington y La Habana sobre seguridad petrolera

Miércoles, 25 de enero del 2012

HUGO L. SÁNCHEZ

LA HABANA

Cada metro que la española Repsol perfore en breve en zonas cubanas del golfo de México será, sin proponérselo, un punto a favor de resolver medio siglo de malas caras y retóricas envenenadas entre Washington y La Habana. El destino ha querido que estas aguas, escenario de naufragios y traficantes de personas huyendo de la isla y rechazados en Florida, constituyan una especie de mesa de negociaciones en este mundo donde el petróleo parece decidirlo todo.

El diario Granma y todos los espacios noticiosos de la televisión informaron la semana pasada de que Repsol reiniciará, en los próximos días, la exploración petrolera en aguas profundas de la Zona Económica Exclusiva (ZEE) de 112.000 kilómetros cuadrados.

Repsol, esta vez en asociación con la noruega Statoil y la india ONGC-Videsh, realizó un primer intento de hallar hidrocarburos hace ocho años y es una de las nueve empresas extranjeras con lotes contratados en esa zona. Ahora, el pozo se ubicará 22 millas al norte de la costa cubana, en el bloque de Jagüey. Repsol tiene los derechos para seis de los 59 bloques de la ZEE con reservas calculadas de 5.000 a nueve millones de barriles de crudo.

Manuel Marrero, especialista principal de petróleo del Ministerio cubano de Industria Básica, comentó recientemente: «Todos estamos esperanzados, sin falsas esperanzas tontas, de que existen probabilidades de encontrar yacimientos de petróleo y de gas grandes».

La plataforma semisumergible que se utilizará es la Scarabeo 9, indica el periódico del Partido Comunista. Fabricada en China y Singapur, fue verificada por autoridades cubanas de la seguridad marítima y el medioambiente.

El rotativo omitió que, a solicitud de Repsol, la plataforma fue certificada antes por la Oficina de Seguridad y Legalidad Ambiental del Departamento del Interior y el Servicio de Guardacostas de EEUU. El secretario estadounidense del Interior, Ken Salazar, que se entrevistó en Madrid en junio con Nemesio Fernández Cuesta, director de exploración de Repsol, dijo entonces que la petrolera aceptó «voluntariamente cumplir con las regulaciones de EEUU» en el golfo.

La revisión de la plataforma es, de forma indirecta, el punto más avanzado de Washington y La Habana para dialogar sobre seguridad petrolera toda vez que entre ambos países no existe mecanismo bilateral al respecto.

En el fondo de todo, a favor de un entendimiento entre dos gobiernos enemigos, está el fantasma del mayor desastre en el golfo de México, causado por British Petroleum en el 2010.

Scarabeo 9 begins drilling for oil 31 miles off the northern coast of Cuba

BBC News is reporting that "Some 50km (31 miles) off the northern coast of Cuba workers have begun drilling deep beneath the waves, exploring for oil reserves that could transform the island's future."

The Scarabeo 9 Is Already in Front of the Malecón de La Habana

Source: Cubadebate:
El Scarabeo-9 ya está frente al Malecón de La Habana
Update at 5:59 p.m. Jan 19, 2012.

Cuba set to explore offshore as oil rig arrives

By PETER ORSI, Associated Press – 28 minutes ago

HAVANA (AP) — A huge drilling rig arrived Thursday in the warm Gulf waters north of Havana, where it will sink an exploratory well deep into the seabed, launching Cuba's dreams of striking it rich with offshore oil.

The Scarabeo-9 platform was visible from Havana's sea wall far off on the hazy horizon as it chugged westward toward its final drill site about 30 miles (50 kilometers) from the capital, and 60 miles (90 kilometers) south of Key West.

Spanish oil company Repsol RPF, which is leasing the rig for about a half-million dollars a day, said it expects to begin drilling within days to find out whether the reserves are as rich as predicted.

"The geologists have done their work. If they've done it well, then we'll have a good chance of success," Repsol spokesman Kristian Rix said by phone from Madrid. "It's been a long process, but now we're at the point where we discover whether our geologists have got it right. It's a happy day."

It's been a long, strange journey for the Scarabeo-9, Repsol and Cuba, a process shadowed at every step by warnings of a possible environmental debacle and decades of bad blood between Cuba and the United States.

The U.S. trade embargo essentially bars U.S. companies from doing oil business with Cuba,

[Cuba Journal Editor: What the U.S. doing is totally illegal, and contrary to International Law. U.S. laws do not have extra-territoriality. The U.S. is not the total ruler of the world. Might does not make right!]

and threatens sanctions against foreign companies if they don't follow its restrictions, making it far more complicated to line up equipment and resources for the project.

Ditto!

To avoid sanctions, Repsol chose the Scarabeo-9, a 380-foot-long (115-meter), self-propelled, semisubmersible behemoth built in China and Singapore and capable of housing 200 workers. The rig qualifies for the Cuba project because it was built with less than 10 percent U.S.-made parts, no small feat considering America's dominance in the industry.

While comparable platforms sat idle in the Gulf of Mexico, the Scarabeo-9 spent months navigating through three oceans and around the Cape of Good Hope to arrive in the Caribbean at tremendous expense.

Even after the rig is in place, the embargo continues to affect just about every aspect.

The Scarabeo-9's blowout preventer, a key piece of machinery that failed in the 2010 Macondo-Deepwater Horizon disaster, is state of the art. But its U.S. manufacturer is not licensed to work with Cuba so replacement parts must come through secondary sources.

It's also more complicated to do things like the maintenance necessary to keep things running smoothly and decrease the chances of something going wrong.

If it does, Cuba would be hard-pressed to respond to a major spill on its own, and getting help isn't as simple as making a phone call to Washington. The embargo would require licenses to be issued for all manner of equipment and services for an emergency response.

Few U.S. companies so far have gotten permission to work with the Cubans in the event of a spill — representing just 5 percent of all the resources thrown at the Macondo blowout, according to an estimate by Lee Hunt, president of the International Association of Drilling Contractors.

Two U.S. companies have received licenses to export capping stacks, crucial pieces of equipment for stopping gushing wells, but related services like personnel and transportation have not been green-lighted, Hunt said.

"So what you have is a great big intelligent piece of iron without a crew," he said. "You can't just drop it on the hole and hope (the spill) will stop. It's not a cork."

Even Tyvek suits worn by cleanup crews cannot currently be exported to Cuba because potentially they could be used for the construction of bacteriological or chemical weapons, Hunt added.

Meanwhile cooperation between the two governments, which often struggle to see eye-to-eye on things as basic as delivering each other's mail, has been only bare-bones.

"With any other country — Mexico, Canada or Russia — we would already have in place agreements between the coast guards of the two countries," said Dan Whittle, Cuba program director for the Environmental Defense Fund. "There would be contingency plans written and publicly available. There already would have been drills, a comprehensive action plan for responding to a spill."

"We don't have that yet."

There has been some movement.

U.S. inspectors examined the rig last week in Trinidad and gave it a clean bill of health, though notably said that did not constitute any certification. And American representatives at a regional oil meeting last month in the Bahamas were left impressed by their Cuban counterparts' openness and willingness to share information.

But the countries' proximity has increased fears of a disastrous spill with the potential to foul not only Cuba's reefs and gleaming, white-sand beaches, but also, swept up by the Gulf Stream, the coast of Florida and the Atlantic Seaboard up to North Carolina.

Curiously, those fears have been cited by people on both sides of the embargo issue: Some say the prospect of environmental disaster shows the U.S. needs to lift the embargo and work with the Cubans in the interest of safety; others say the fact that the trade ban failed to prevent Cuba from drilling shows it needs to be made even tougher.

Some of the harshest criticism has come from Cuban-American members of Congress such as House Foreign Affairs Committee chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who recently accused the Obama administration of dropping the ball on Cuban drilling.

"Oil exploration 90 miles off the Florida coast by this corrupt, unaccountable dictatorship could result in horrific environmental and economic damage to our Gulf Coast communities, in addition to enriching the Castro tyranny," Ros-Lehtinen said.

The exact size of Cuba's offshore reserves, estimated at 5 billion to 9 billion barrels, is still unknown. And production would not come online for years, so any windfall is still on the horizon. But island officials are hopeful of a big strike that could inject much-needed cash into their struggling economy, and they're not asking anyone for permission.

"Cuba is going through its own change regardless of American foreign policy," said U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the U.S. Senate who met with Cuban officials in Havana this week on oil and other matters.

"This discovery, or potential discovery, of significant amounts of oil could dramatically change the economy of Cuba, and change the relationship with the United States in small ways and large," Durbin said while visiting Haiti on Thursday.

Associated Press videojournalist Pierre-Richard Luxama in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, contributed to this report.

Scarabeo 9 Arrives in Trinidad and Tobago

Trinidad and Tobago News

By CLINT CHAN TACK Tuesday, December 27 2011

CUBAN oil rig Scarabeo 9 has arrived in Trinidad and Tobago, Energy Minister Kevin Ramnarine confirmed yesterday adding that he was advised by officials from Spanish energy company Repsol YPF that Scarabeo 9 arrived on Christmas Eve and the rig is currently located off the coast of Chaguaramas and is expected to remain there for a two week period for inspection. Repsol is the client of the rig.

Spain's Repsol YPF Scarabeo 9 to Arrive in Trinidad and Tobago Around Christmas

Trinidad and Tobago is the headquarters of Repsol's Caribbean operations.

Complete story from: upstreamonline.com.

Cuba could become an oil exporter.

La Loba Feroz and the Infamous 34.

U.S. must talk to Cuba on oil-drilling plans

Orlando Sentinel Editorial

December 9, 2011

Considering last year's deadly explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig and all the oil that gushed into the Gulf of Mexico, it would be counterproductive for the United States to let a diplomatic stand-off get in the way of ensuring drilling in the Florida Straits meets the highest of standards.

Unfortunately, that appears to be happening. It's a relic of the Cold War — the ongoing iciness with Cuba's Castro-led government.

Rather than engage Havana one-on-one about its Florida Straits drilling plan, Washington has publicly said it prefers to go through multinational forums. Since Wednesday, for example, U.S. officials have had access to Cuban and Bahamian counterparts at an International Maritime Organization gathering.

At least they're talking to each other. But it makes no sense to engage Cuban officials on international platforms and not in direct talks, too. We hope more engagement is taking place through back channels.

Washington has conducted direct negotiations with Havana on other issues, such as immigration and military matters. Surely drilling in waters close to Florida's environmentally sensitive and economically vital coasts rises to the same priority level.

What if there is an accident similar to the 2010 episode in the Gulf? Will Washington then wait until the next IMO workshop to address the crisis with Havana?

We'd prefer that federal and state officials would already have critical contacts and information at hand, generated by multilateral and direct talks, public or not. Again, we hope talks are at least occurring behind the scenes.

Cuba's not the only concern for Florida. The Bahamas also is mulling its own oil exploration next year.

Bahamian officials have already worked with Cuban counterparts to address boundary issues. They were smart to do so.

We have long advocated democratic and free market reforms in Cuba. No amount of oil-drilling revenue will boost the island's fortunes without fundamental reforms.

We just don't believe shunning direct talks on drilling will boost that transition.

Meanwhile, the Scarabeo 9 — a floating, Chinese-rig — is sailing across the Pacific Ocean from Singapore to Cuba's north coast. As early as next month, it could be drilling just 70 miles from Florida waters.

Time is running out. The Obama administration would be smart to rethink its approach to Cuba oil-drilling discussions.

The IMO workshop that concludes today is a fine forum, we agree. But Washington should not box itself in by limiting talks on this critical issue to a U.N. agency.

Florida has too much at stake.

The Political Posturing of U.S. Senator Bill Nelson

U.S. Senator Bill Nelson, Democrat from Florida, is a typical corrupt Democratic Party politician. He has always been a "buddy" of the Batistianos in Miami, and is a good friend of Robert Menendez, another corrupt Democrat, this one from New Jersey, a state where politicians are usually allies of the American Mafia.

Nelson is upset because foreign companies are going to explore for oil in Cuban territorial waters in the Gulf Of Mexico. So he has introduced a silly bill in the U.S. Senate which does not amount to a hill of beans, and is the trademark of failed politicos, who usually introduce bills for political posturing and to collect graft money under the table.

He is also strongly in favor of continuing the failed embargo against Cuba. He has no shame, doesn't he?

So I am adding him to my little list of incumbent politicians who will not get my vote in November 2012.

NOTA, HERE I COME!

Cuba's Rafael Tenreiro: "It is not a matter of if we have oil, it is a matter of when we are going to start producing"

Cuba hopes the Scarabeo 9 rig
will help to expand its oil industry
By Michael Voss - BBC News, Havana

15 November 2011 Last updated at 08:20 ET

15 November 2011

A massive $750m (£473m) Chinese-built oil rig, the Scarabeo 9, is due to arrive in Cuba before the end of the year, to begin drilling a series of exploratory wells.

A whole range of international oil companies from Spain, Norway, Russia, India, Vietnam, Malaysia, Canada, Angola, Venezuela, and China - but not the US - are lining up to hire the rig and search for what are believed to be substantial oil deposits.

"We will drill several wells next year and I'm sure we will have discoveries. It is not a matter of if we have oil, it is a matter of when we are going to start producing," Rafael Tenreiro, head of exploration for the Cuban state-owned oil company Cupet, confidently predicts.

The Spanish company Repsol will be the first to drill, with an exploratory well in extremely deep water just 50 miles (80km) off the coast of Florida.

Be prepared

It has sent alarm bells ringing in the United States because if there were an accident, the ocean currents would push any oil spill onto Florida's beaches and the Everglades.

Yet under the US trade embargo, neither American firms nor the Coast Guard could come to Cuba's assistance or provide much needed equipment such as booms, pumps, skimmers and oil dispersant systems.

The Cubans would need to turn to the Norwegians, British or Brazilians for help.

"In the event of a disaster we are talking a response time in terms of equipment of four to six weeks as opposed to 36 or 48 hours. This is a serious impediment," warned Lee Hunt, president of the Texas-based International Association of Drilling Contractors.

Mr Hunt was part of a team of oil industry and environmental experts who were given permission by the Obama administration to visit Cuba to discuss safety issues with the authorities in Havana.

Leading the group was William Reilly, a former head of the US Environmental Protection Agency and co-author of the government report into last year's BP oil disaster.

He was impressed with Cuba's awareness of the risks and knowledge of the latest international safety measures.

The explosion and blow-out aboard BP's Deepwater Horizon rig off the coast of Louisiana killed 11 people and spilled 5m barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. It was one of the worst environmental disasters ever to hit the Gulf Coast.

It took 85 days to cap the well head, which was 5,500 feet beneath the surface. The Scarabeo 9 will be drilling in even deeper water.

After his talks with Cuban officials, William Reilly said he found them serious about safety and aware of international best practice but lacking in experience.

He wants to see the US co-operate with Cuba on safety issues and ease the embargo to allow US companies to assist in case of an emergency.

"It is profoundly in the interests of the United States to prepare the Cubans as best we can to ensure that we are protected in the case of a spill. We need to make it 'Key West safe'."

But Florida's powerful Cuban-American lobby has other ideas and with the 2012 presidential election looming, Barack Obama is in a difficult position.

Oil windfall?

The anti-Castro groups want the administration to take action to halt the drilling altogether and not just for safety reasons.

A major oil find would make this communist-run Caribbean island financially independent for the first time since the revolution in 1959.

For more than half a century Cuba has been dependent on the largesse of its ideological allies. First it was subsidized by the Soviet Union, then more recently Venezuela and, to a lesser extent, China.

Cuba has long produced some oil from a series of small onshore and coastal deposits.

Cuba currently produces about 53,000 barrels of oil a day but still needs to import about 100,000 barrels, mainly from Venezuela.

Its deep territorial waters, though, lie on the same geological strata as oil rich Mexico and the US Gulf.

Estimates on just how much offshore oil Cuba is sitting on vary. A US Geological Survey estimate suggests 4.6bn barrels, the Cubans say 20bn.

Even the most conservative estimate would make Cuba a net oil exporter. A large find would provide untold riches.

It is one of the US-based anti-Castro lobby's worst nightmares.

"The decaying Cuban regime is desperately reaching out for an economic lifeline, and it appears to have found a willing partner in Repsol to come to its rescue," Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the Cuban-born Republican and Chairwoman of the influential House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement recently.

[JG: Of course the BBC very conveniently forgets to mention that La Loba Feroz family participated in the Batista dictatorship in Cuba. She, and her imperialist masters, would like to be able to exploit Cubans again.]

The Florida Congresswoman and a group of 33 other legislators, both Republican and Democrat, wrote to Repsol warning the company that the drilling could subject the company to "criminal and civil liability in US courts".

Repsol responded saying that its exploratory wells complied with all current US legislation covering the embargo as well as all safety regulations.

It has also agreed to allow US officials to conduct a safety inspection of the Chinese rig before it enters Cuban waters.

Under the embargo it is limited to just 10% American technology.

The rig was fitted in Singapore and the one piece of US equipment which was installed was the blow-out preventer.

[JG: If the imperialists are so smart, how come that the American-made blow-out preventer at BP's platform did not work? The reason is that capitalists are only interested in making huge sums of money at all costs. They cut corners and they cut safety procedures. Result: the death of 11 innocent people a the Deepwater Horizon BP oil rig. But since the U.S. and the British are partners in crime, they look the other way. THEY ARE THE SCUM OF THE EARTH!]

It was the failure of BP's blow-out preventer which was at the heart of that disaster.

According to Lee Hunt, the Scarabeo 9 is a state of the art deep-water rig and there are six similar platforms built at the same Chinese shipyard currently operating in US waters.

For the moment environmental concerns appear to be taking precedence over politics.

The government will take up Repsol's offer to inspect Scarabeo 9 and a limited number of licences have been issued to US clean-up operators to enter Cuban waters and assist in the event of a spill.

But the arguments are far from over as environmentalists are pushing for greater co-operation while Cuban-American groups are looking at ways to place legal and legislative hurdles in the way.

Cuba Makes Bold Move to Develop Oil Resources

Chinese-built oil drilling rig (Photo: Reuters)
St. Kitts Nevis Observer

Friday, October 14, 2011

By Kenneth Williams and Geno Marcello

Cuba is hoping to boost its faltering economy by launching a full-scale oil exploration in the Gulf of Mexico just 50 miles from Florida. Experts say Cuba has 20 Billion barrels of undiscovered oil reserves. Proven true, Cuba would be in the top 20 oil producing countries.

The announcement came from Cubapetroleo, the state oil monopoly, through a dispatch written by Marc Frank for the Financial Times in Havana. According to Mr. Frank, seven exploration wells are planned in Cuba's Gulf of Mexico up to the end of 2012.

A new Chinese deep-water rig owned by Saipem, a unit of Italian oil company Eni SpA, left its shipyard in late 2010 to begin working with the Cubans. The rig was built specially to get around the 10 percent limit on American technology which is required under the embargo.

Reports are circulating that some companies have opened bids for well casing. Some work has also been done in Miami and is continuing to prepare for the exploratory wells.

Embargo foes in Washington D.C. are supporting legislation that would let U.S. groups participate in Cuba's offshore oil plans for development. Supporters of the embargo are creating laws that impose sanctions on any foreign groups that defy the embargo.

Some exploratory work by Seposi in 2004 revealed the presence of hydrocarbons when a well was drilled, but not in a commercially viable quantity. Since that first well, however, other seismic work has revealed 15 sites with a high probability of oil.

Cuba's oil advisor Manuel Marreo Faz estimates the country has over 20 billion barrels of oil in its offshore areas. The U.S. Geological Survey is much more conservative, putting the figure at 4.6 billion barrels. Cuba presently produces 60,000 barrels of oil per day and imports 115,000 barrels daily from Venezuela.

Observers report the Obama Administration has declined to denounce Cuba's drilling plans and seems to favor limited cooperation, said Frank.

The Obama Administration said recently that it would allow U.S. firms that handle and clean up oil spills to operate in Cuban waters should the need arise and also granted approval for executives from the Houston-based International Assn. of Drilling Contractors to visit Cuba recently. Association President Lee Hunt told the Financial Times he was impressed by Cuba's preparations to date as well as its regulatory regime in the wake of the BP oil disaster.

Hunt pointed out, 'This is one gulf shared by three countries. We are promoting cooperation between their industries to insure the unfortunate events that occurred in Mexico and more recently in the United States do not happen here.'

Jorge Pinot, a visiting research assistant at the Cuban Research Institute of Florida International University, said more efforts should be made to wean Cuba from energy dependence on Venezuela while insuring safety. He called on the U.S. to give oil companies working in Cuba access to equipment and technology that would allow (the development) of Cuba's hydrocarbon resources in a safe and responsible manner.'