Castro's revenge: The Cuban oil rush

[jpak]

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/03/19/8402339/index.htm?cnn=yes

(Fortune Magazine) -- Sometime later this year, less than 70 miles from Florida, a consortium of Spanish, Indian and Norwegian companies will likely start drilling for oil. It could mark the beginning of a Cuban oil rush - one that American oil companies won't be able to join, despite their proximity to the action.

And that has some U.S. oil industry executives and lobbyists seething, especially since the American Association of Petroleum Geologists calls the offshore Cuban oil deposits a "significant find."

U.S. oil companies can't play in these waters, of course, barred as they are by sanctions prohibiting them from doing business with Cuba. But irked at the irony of sanctions designed to isolate Fidel Castro that isolate them instead, some in the oil industry are seeking to exempt U.S. oil companies from the 45-year-old embargo.

Emboldened by a newly Democratic Congress and the potential for regime change in Cuba, oil industry lobbyists are promoting exemption bills. One, by Senator Larry Craig (R-Idaho), never got out of committee last year. But Craig plans to reintroduce it in the Senate as part of a larger energy bill in the coming weeks, says spokesman Dan Whiting.

<more>

[hobbit709]

1. Do they really think

that Castro will let American corporations in on this?:rofl:

[StClone]

2. Sorry no exemptions

Love it. U.S. Oil Companies gouged us and now they want favors. How about finding alternate energy sources...while Chavez sends oil to poor Americans. Sigh.

[Sammy Pepys]

3. The Cuba embargo is stupid to begin with...

..a shame it might take something like this to finally kill it.

Of course, the US will probably be able to get their hands on that oil once it hits the world market (or perhaps through the drillers themselves), Cuban or not....