Petrolio, Usa, Cuba Nyt 06-05-09
Visti i progetti cubani di pozzi offshore, c’è chi
vuole che gli USA seguanno l’esempio
MICHAEL JANOFSKY
Cuba, non in grado effettuare trivellazioni da sola per l’estrazione
di petrolio e gas nello Stretto di Florida, ha stipulato accordi con Cina,
India, Spagna e Canada; ha suddiviso l’area di sua competenza in 59 lotti, 16
dei quali assegnati o in negoziato per paesi stranieri.
In occasione della
recente conferenza sul commercio in Messico, Cuba ha chiesto alle compagnie americane di presentare le
loro offerte per i lotti restanti, cosa che violerebbe però l’embargo commerciale
americano contro Cuba.
Secondo stime americane,
nella sola parte cubana dello stretto ci sarebbero giacimenti per 4,6 MD b. di
petrolio e 9 800 MD m3. di gas naturale, equivalente ad alcuni
mesi del consumo energetico totale statunitense. Il ministero americano degli Interni
calcola giacimenti nella piattaforma
continentale esterna di 115 MD. B. di petrolio e di 633 000 MD. m3,
equivalente al fabbisogno corrente americano di petrolio per 16 anni e di gas
per 25 anni.
Nel 1977 USA e Cuba
hanno firmato un trattato per la suddivisione dello Stretto di Florida e dei
vasti giacimenti sottomarini di petrolio e gas, trattato rinnovato per 2 anni lo
scorso dicembre da G.W. Bush.
Dai primi 1980 è in
vigore un divieto del Congresso di perforazioni marittima entro 200 miglia
dalla costa, comprendente quasi tutta la piattaforma continentale esterna.
Negli USA è in atto un’opera
di lobby per porre fine al divieto di trivellazione; gli oppositori alle trivellazioni
adducono motivi ambientali e la non influenza della modesta quantità di petrolio
estraibile sui prezzi del mercato internazionale dell’energia.
Non è certa l’approvazione di una recente proposta di legge per ovviare all’embargo,
con un’esenzione simile a quella voluta diversi anni fa da società USA per vendere
cibo e farmaci a Cuba; altre misure di compromesso sono previste da proposte di
legge in corso…
Nyt 06-05-09
As Cuba Plans Offshore Wells, Some Want U.S.
to Follow Suit
By MICHAEL JANOFSKY
WASHINGTON, May 8 — In 1977,
the United States and Cuba
signed a treaty that evenly divided the Florida Straits to preserve each
country’s economic rights. They included access to vast underwater oil and gas
fields on both sides of the line.
Now, with energy costs soaring, plans are under way to drill this year —
but all on the Cuban side.
– With only modest
energy needs and no ability of its own to drill, Cuba has negotiated lease agreements
with China and other
energy-hungry countries to extract resources for themselves and for Cuba.
Cuba‘s drilling plans have been in place for several years, but now that
China, India and others are involved and fuel prices
are unusually high, a growing number of
lawmakers and business leaders in the United States are starting to
complain. They argue that the
United States’ decades-old ban against drilling in coastal waters is
driving up domestic energy costs and, in this case, is giving two of America’s chief economic competitors
access to energy at the United States’ expense.
"This is the irony of
ironies," Charles T. Drevna, executive vice president of the National Petrochemical
and Refiners Association, said of Cuba’s collaboration with China and India.
"We have chosen to lock up our resources and stand by to be spectators
while these two come in and benefit from things right in our own backyard."
– The United States Geological Survey estimates that the energy field on Cuba’s side
alone may have 4.6 billion barrels of oil and 9.8 trillion cubic feet of
natural gas. That much energy is equivalent to just a few months of the United States’
total energy consumption.
– The survey does not
specify how much of an energy reserve is on the United
States’ side of the Florida Straits, just north of Cuba.
But almost all of the country’s Outer Continental Shelf, waters within 200 miles of
shorelines, has been off
limits to drilling since the early 1980’s because of Congressional bans
and executive orders.
– President Bush, who
renewed the 1977 treaty last December for two years,
has cited China’s
growing demand for oil and international efforts to obtain it as prime reasons
for high gasoline prices. The latest version of the administration’s national
security strategy, issued in March, warned that China’s leaders were "acting
as if they can somehow ‘lock up’ energy supplies around the world."
– To Mr. Drevna and
others who are lobbying Congress to end the prohibition, energy
exploration in coastal waters represents a strong step toward energy independence
and lower prices.
–
The Interior Department estimates that the Outer
Continental Shelf has more than 115 billion barrels of oil and 633 trillion
cubic feet of natural gas available for extraction. At current levels of
consumption, that would satisfy the nation’s oil needs for about 16 years and its natural gas needs for about
25 years.
– Opponents of drilling in United
States waters are equally passionate in
their arguments, saying that drilling for oil off the coast poses environmental risks and that
drilling for finite supplies undermines
long-term conservation solutions. They also say modest supplies of additional oil would not necessarily lower gasoline
prices in the United States
because oil is traded on a world market.
But drilling proponents say the time has come to end the bans,
especially with plans by China and India
to capture oil and gas so close to the United States shoreline.
"My fear is for the future of America," said Representative John
E. Peterson, Republican of Pennsylvania,
who has collected more than 160 co-sponsors for a bipartisan bill that would
open coastal waters for development of natural gas. "We have a
natural gas crisis, and it’s the biggest threat we have to the American economy."
Senator Larry E. Craig, Republican of Idaho, took narrow aim at the activities planned for the Florida Straits
and recently complained on the Senate floor, "Red China should not be left
to drill for oil within spitting distance of our shores without competition
from U.S.
industries."
– Cuba has divided its side of
the Florida Straits into 59 lease areas. As of the end
of February, foreign countries
had secured the rights or were negotiating the rights to 16 of them,
according to Cuban government documents provided by the Cuban Interests Section
in Washington.
Kirby Jones, founder and president of the U.S. Cuba Trade Association, a group that promotes United States
business interests in Cuba, said Cuba
had signed agreements with companies from China,
India, Spain and Canada.
– At a recent trade conference in Mexico City
arranged by Mr. Jones, Cuban officials
invited American oil companies to bid for the other leases on the Cuban
side of the Florida Straits even
though drilling in Cuban waters would violate the United
States’ longstanding trade embargo against Cuba.
The purpose, Mr. Jones said, "was
to let the American oil executives know what is happening in Cuba."
United States oil companies would have
a right to bid for Cuban leases under legislation Mr. Craig is drafting. Dan Whiting, his spokesman, said the measure would seek an exemption like the one created
several years ago for United States
companies to sell food and medicine to Cuba. But an exemption for
drilling seems uncertain, given the large number of lawmakers staunchly opposed
to any economic relationship with Cuba as long as Fidel Castro is
president.
Mr. Craig’s measure would be one of
several Senate bills aimed at drilling in coastal waters. Two pending measures
would approve operations in a
small tract of the Gulf of Mexico, one of the
few coastal areas where drilling is allowed. And a measure introduced
two weeks ago by Senator Bill
Nelson, Democrat of Florida, who opposes drilling within 150 miles of Florida’s coastline, would block renewal of the
1977 treaty and then deny foreign companies access to United States markets if they continued to drill
in waters close to Cuba.
Mr. Peterson said his bill focused only
on natural gas because of its importance to the American manufacturing
industry, particularly chemical companies, which spend huge amounts on natural
gas to make their products.
– The average price of a gallon of gasoline has increased by 126 percent since early
2000, to a current average of $2.96 per gallon, according to the Energy
Information Administration. Natural gas prices have jumped by 152 percent in
the same period, to $6.56 per thousand cubic feet. It is a rate the National Association
of Manufacturers says has contributed to the loss of more than 3.1 million jobs
since 2000 through plant closings and relocations offshore.
Mr. Peterson’s bill is one of several
proposing to open coastal waters that House lawmakers are expected to consider
before long. Brian Kennedy, a spokesman for Representative Richard W. Pombo,
Republican of California and chairman of the House Resources Committee, said Mr.
Pombo planned to introduce a bill that would give states control of the first
125 miles of waters beyond their shorelines.
– Last week, American
business executives visited lawmakers on Capitol Hill to lobby for any change
in policy that would open up coastal waters, particularly those near Cuba.
"It’s such an easy fix," said
John Paro, president and chief executive of the CPH Holding Corporation, a
chemical company in Chicago.
"We have the supply, and it’s close. I just wish the public would
recognize how easy this problem is to deal with."
New York Times