AJ Rampage Update: The Whole Cuba Conondrum - Part One (There really was drilling going on!)
Posted by: Aaron Park | 08/19/2008 10:38 AM
As Reported by the Auburn Journal who let the story run as the top story on Auburnjournal.com for four days - Tom McClintock had said that China was drilling off of the coast of Cuba.
As you would expect - the Auburn Journal wing of the Brown for Congress campaign ignored the absurdity of the fact that someone else could drill for our own oil. "We have chosen to lock up our resources and stand by to be spectators while these two (China and India) come in and benefit from things right in our own backyard."
If the Auburn Journal had followed up on the story - they would have found the following:
In 2006, Cuba started to lease it's off-shore territory for off-shore oil drilling some to China.
In 2006, Test drilling was conducted by a number of foreign oil companies on the leased off-shore territories.
The first actual producing oil wells are in the final stages of study before full development. You have to drill to study and develop.
But since the Auburn Journal has transfered their hatred of John Doolittle to Tom McClintock, nothing but dancing in the endzone over a technicality, Journalism is aborted in the process.
Take a look at the following from 2006:
Link:
Exploratory Oil Drilling Done Off Cuba
by Marc Frank and Anthony Boadle
Drilling of an exploratory well in Cuba's virgin Gulf of Mexico waters that could make the Communist nation an oil exporter and undermine the U.S. embargo has been completed, a senior official said.
Blogger's Note - it is accurate to say there is drilling going on in Cuba after all!
Work on the well by Spain's Repsol YPF began in June and captured the attention of the industry and governments due to its potential economic and political consequences.
The drilling has ended and the Spanish company is assessing the results. We don't know if there is good quality oil yet. We expect to be informed in two weeks," the Cuban official, who spoke on the condition he was not identified, said on Saturday evening.
The oil industry is watching closely the first ever well sunk in Cuba's 43,000-square-mile exclusive economic zone in the Gulf, which may hold large quantities of medium-grade crude.
A commercially viable find could transform the cash-strapped island from oil importer to petroleum exporting nation, adding pressure on the United States to lift its four-decades-old trade embargo against President Fidel Castro's government.
The senior Cuban official said Repsol was analyzing samples to determine their quality and whether commercial production would be feasible.
Repsol believes up to 1.6 billion barrels of oil may be located where the drill bit went down 18 miles off the northwest coast of Cuba in waters one mile deep.
TRADE SANCTIONS
Experts said if the results were positive Repsol would take at least four years to develop production. But they believe U.S. trade sanctions could be a problem since much of the equipment needed to extract oil at such a depth is American.
Cuba's exclusive economic zone runs along the north coast and down past the western tip of Cuba. It was parceled into 59 blocks for foreign exploration in 1999.
Repsol took the rights in 2000 to the six blocks closest to shore and Cuba's oil-producing northwest coast. Sherritt International, a Canadian mining and energy company, recently opted for four adjoining blocks. Industry sources said companies from China, Britain, Brazil, Venezuela and elsewhere were considering exploration, but waiting for the Repsol results and the U.S. reaction.
The president of Brazil's state oil company Petrobras was expected in Cuba at the weekend to discuss exploration and the creation of a lubricants joint-venture, but his visit was postponed at Cuba's request, Demarco Jorge Epifanio, Petrobras coordinator of Cuba projects, said.
Cuba has desperately searched for oil with foreign partners since the Soviet Union's demise deprived it of 255,000 barrels per day on preferential terms.
There have been some minor discoveries along the northwest coast's traditional oil belt, which produces an extremely heavy crude burned in the modified boilers of power plants and factories on the island.
Cuba's oil and gas production has increased from less than 20,000 barrels per day a decade ago to the equivalent of 75,000 barrels, half the country's current consumption.
Blogger's Note: the other amazing thing is that the Auburn Journal has extended the drilling issue with their story. Democrats all over the country are getting hurt by this issue - so badly that Pelosi is finally starting to crack.
Charlie Brown is wedged between a rock and a hardplace. He his the Left-Wing that will abandon him if he moves twoard the center and the center is the only place he has a chance of winning from. Too bad Charlie's stances on issues peg him to the left.
Sorry Charlie! You're still getting drilled!
Women's right to vote didn't exist until they fought for it. Blacks rights for equality didn't happen until...
Tom still lied when he said China was drilling in Cuban waters. No amount of l-o-n-g and repetitive posts can change that fact.
Aaron
Yes there has been Cuban oil reserves delopment going on and actual test drilling by the companies you mention. No one has who has commented on this issue has indicated otherwise. In fact I said that US Big Oil is getting frustrated that there is a steady drumbeat of such activity and they are being left behind. Not because the Cubans have excluded American Big Oil, but because Bush, Cheney & Rice, Inc have beaten back Big Oil's attempts to modify the Cuban Trade Embargo the has been in place for the last 47 years. BC&R even had hotel security roust the Cubans who were courting Big Oil execs at a Sheraton Hotel in Mexico City.
All of the above is readily gleaned from the website that I passed on to you on at least 2 major comments by me. This website again is: http://www.wsicubaproject.org/energy.cfm
I strongly recommended that you take some time to read through the lengthy log of what's going on with Cuba energy-wise. It is absurd for you to now come to the table with your hair on fire as if you "discovered" that there is indeed a steady of progression of exploratory oil development including test drilling.
Are you now trying to somehow rehabilitate McClintock's original public pronouncement?:
“Meanwhile, the vast oil fields off the coast of Florida that American law prevents Americans from developing are now being drained by the Chinese government drilling in Cuban waters”
That was categorically knocked down by Jorge Pinion as I have writen before.
The issue now is, how do McClintock and Brown feel about joining forces with a steadily growing bipartisan caucus of both Senators and Congresspersons to get Big Oil in the Cuban oil development game? Even George Schultz, Reagan's Secretary of State says that the trade embargo that thwarts Big Oil's participation in being a player is "insane". Let me repeat that word, INSANE. That's what Schultzie says.
(YAWN) - How was your bridge game?
Aaron says:
(YAWN)
(Aaron in reverie)
Time for me to do the faux bored el foldo of the hand that I have messed up so badly that I am starting to look like a real card playing bozo.
Why did I sit down at the table in the first place? Right, now I remember. Tom went on mega tilt and lost his mind.
He pushed all in with with two four off-suit before the flop:
“Meanwhile, the vast oil fields off the coast of Florida that American law prevents Americans from developing are now being drained by the Chinese government drilling in Cuban waters”
He stared at Charlie thinking Charlie is no rocket scientist. He didn't know that Charlie happened to catch pocket rockets. Well, Charlie may be no rocket scientist, but he knows pocket rockets are pretty good.
So Charlie called him all in and stared back a Tom. Tom is about to really embarrass him self because, well we will not go there...
Long story short, the flop and 4th street and the river didn't do two four off-suit any good. Charlies rockets roooled.
So here I sit at a side game in a saw dust joint trying to get enough to get Tom back in the big game. And I have to be honest with myself, I ain't any Cincinnati Kid myself...
Aaron says:
"How was your bridge game?"
Being as it is my birthday, I will permit myself a public atta boy.
Monday Afternoon Pairs Monday Aft Session August 18, 2008
Scores after 9 rounds Average: 108.0 Section C East-West
Pair Pct Score Section Rank MPs
A B C
7 59.61 128.76 A 1 0.96(A) Leland Reed - Joan Nelson
2 58.81 127.03 A 2 0.67(A) Jackie Matthews - Sherry Hilger
3 55.51 119.90 C 3 1 1 0.64(B) Frances Erskine - Jack Nold
8 54.13 116.91 B 4 2 0.45(B) Harriet Ruderman - Milton Ruderman
6 52.21 112.77 B 5 3 0.32(B) Rose-Marie Schaefer - Jean Jones
9 50.30 108.64 C 2 0.17(C) Carol Stowell - Rick Stowell
4 48.52 104.81 A Barbara Ohman - Lorraine Lazowick
11 48.38 104.51 B Doris Berkovec - Jim Berkovec
1 45.56 98.41 B Virginia Taylor - Ann Rutledge
10 45.23 97.70 A Louise Munch - Dona Louzader
12 44.16 95.38 C Edie Pryor - Mary Jo Aitkenhead
5 36.92 79.74 C Eleanor Kulseng - Karl Kulseng
I am very proud of our Sun City Roseville Bridge Club. It is loaded with a lot of very good bridge players and as such, prepares us well for going out to Sectional, Regional, and National ACBL tournaments. It has two ACBL sanctioned games a week which means that one can earn ACBL master points.
Aaron, I have this computer software program called Bridge Baron 15. Instead of you blogging (???) in your spare moments at the office, you could bring your bridge game up to speed. The collateral payoff is that you would learn how to think through the whole hand before you play to the first trick. As I said before, more good hands get dropped on the floor because of poor planning.
Lemme know if you want me to drop it by...
Your friend
Lee
PS...one can get the Monday game results, including the travelers at: http://www.scrbridgeclub.info//DuplicateBridge/DuplicateBridge.aspx