Cuba invites U.S. cos. to fight embargo

The Associated Press/MEXICO CITY
By JULIE WATSON
Associated Press Writer

Cuba invites U.S. cos. to fight embargo

FEB. 3 5:16 P.M. ET Cuban officials invited U.S. corporations Friday to
lobby against the U.S. trade embargo and invest in the communist
nation's energy sector, as they announced plans to double their drilling
capacity and explore for oil in the island's Caribbean waters.

In the first private-sector oil summit between the two countries,
executives from U.S. giants like ExxonMobil Corp., Caterpillar Inc. and
Valero Energy Corp. were meeting with Cuban government officials in
Mexico City this week to learn about Cuba's potentially lucrative oil
reserves.

"We would be happy if North American companies also participated in
future projects," said Raul Perez de Prado, Cuba's vice minister of
basic industry.

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U.S. executives should work to "eliminate the absurd barriers that today
limit" investment, Perez de Prado said, referring to the 45-year-old
U.S. trade embargo designed to undermine Fidel Castro's communist
government.

In the two years since petroleum deposits were found off its coast, Cuba
has inked exploration deals with Canadian, Chinese, Indian and Norwegian
firms.

But U.S. corporations, their hands tied by the embargo, have been forced
to watch the flurry of activity taking place less than 60 miles (100
kilometers) off the coast of Florida.

This week's gathering could be "a watershed moment" that ushers in a
change in U.S. policy, said Jonathan Benjamin-Alvarado, a political
scientist at the University of Nebraska, Omaha, who studies the Cuban
energy sector.

One year after Cuban and U.S. agricultural officials held similar
meetings in Mexico in 1999, the U.S. government passed a law allowing
food and agricultural exports to Cuba on a cash basis. Cuba says it has
since purchased US$1.5 billion (euro1.2 billion) in American food.

ExxonMobil Ventures Mexico Ltd. President Joe Newhart said the three-day
meeting was his company's first chance to meet Cuban energy authorities,
and called it an "opportunity to see what goes on in Cuba firsthand."

Benjamin-Alvarado said working with Cuba would offer U.S. oil companies
a host of opportunities, from building refineries to storing oil if a
hurricane should wipe out supplies in Houston, for example.

Cuba's first well -- found in 2004 by Spanish petrochemical company
Repsol-YPF -- was not considered commercially viable, but the discovery
of reserves fueled the government's hopes of becoming more
self-sufficient amid tightened U.S. sanctions.

The island nation has since invested US$1.7 billion (euro1.4 billion)
into its energy sector with help from Canada, Europe and Latin America.

Juan A. Fleitas, general director of oil monopoly CUPET SA, said Cuba
plans to revamp its energy sector in the next few years, including
doubling its drilling capacity and exploring its 59 deep-water blocks.

Foreign companies have agreed to explore 10 blocks so far, and six
others are under negotiation.

Cuba, once almost wholly dependent on foreign fuel imports, now produces
more than 30 percent of its own crude.

Mike Martinez, president of Mexico-based oil engineering firm
Bay-Inelectra, suggested that Cuba could offer the United States a
viable oil source amid instability in the Middle East and elsewhere.

"Now we're dealing with a lot more unstable places, like Nigeria and
Venezuela with (President Hugo) Chavez," said Martinez, whose family
fled Cuba in the 1960s.

The meeting, which ends Saturday, is sponsored by the U.S.-Cuba Trade
Association; Texas-based Valero, the biggest U.S. oil refiner; the
Louisiana Department of Economic Development; and the Texas Port of
Corpus Christi, among others.

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