Oil drilling off Cuba -- if you're not a US company.
Several nations are doing business with Cuba,
exploring for oil in national waters. US companies prohibited.
China will send 12 hi-tech rigs to drill for oil in Cuban waters of the Gulf of Mexico, officials have confirmed, irking US lawmakers that US firms cannot prospect in nearby US waters.
Cuba has stepped up work on a total of 36 new oil wells with Chinese companies and Canada’s Sherritt, about four kilometers (2.5 miles) off the north coast, officials said privately…And diplomatic sources on Thursday said that India’s ONGC Videsh and Norway’s Norsk Hydro would join forces with Spain’s Repsol to seek crude in the Gulf of Mexico.
Among other companies with prospecting rights if not projects there are Canada’s Sherritt International and Brazil’s state oil giant Petrobras.
Cuba has invited US firms to take part but the US economic embargo bars them from doing so.
Business as usual — if you want votes in Miami.
Posted: Fri - May 12, 2006 at 07:01 AM