Cuba is still waiting for its offshore oil rush.
It has been four years since U.S. experts said the island may sit atop nearly 10 billion barrels of deep-sea oil, revealing for Cuba an enormous economic Catch-22.
Cuba needs the technical expertise of major western oil companies to get to any of the unexploited crude. Yet on Feb. 7 the U.S. marked the 47th year of a trade embargo that has blocked producers with the technical ability to drill that deep, denying Cuba what could be a massive windfall.
A major discovery was supposed to transform Cuba into an oil exporter, drawing the foreign currency it needs to finance imports of food and machinery to modernize its communist economy and to raise stubborn state wages that average less than a dollar a day.
With public debts mounting, the government was forced to buy out its two main drilling partners from a 25-year deal, and even high-ranking officials say Cuba now imports about half the roughly 200,000 barrels of oil consumes a day at a discount from leftist ally Venezuela.
The embargo and world economic crisis have undermined some of the appeal of costly deep-water drilling off the island, and Cuba's existing oil industry is floundering. Output is thought to have dropped by a quarter since 2003 as its top field, found by Russians in 1971, dries up.
There has been talk of President Barack Obama easing U.S. sanctions, which could unleash a flood of energy investment. But for now, analysts say most companies remain on the sidelines.
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"It's not a pretty picture," said Jorge Pinon, a former president at Amoco Oil Latin America.
The U.S. Geological Survey in 2005 estimated that as much as 9.3 billion barrels of oil could lie off the island's north coast, while Cuban geologists put that number at 20 billion barrels in October, said Rafael Tenreyro Perez, production manager at state oil company Cubapetroleo, or Cupet.
Experts widely dismissed the Cuban estimate, noting the government failed to disclose the methodology and data that would back up such a claim.
Cuba's only deep-sea test well to date, drilled by Cupet and Spanish oil company Repsol in 2004, found just small amounts of "high quality reserves," while the Ministry of Basic Resources postponed drilling projects in 2007 and 2008, saying that unprecedented oil prices had made rig rental costs too much to bear.
With oil now 75 percent below its July peak, Repsol may start drilling a second well this year, Tenreyro Perez said — though the company declined to confirm.
Cuba lacks the technology and training to certify its reserves and has sought foreign partners — offering better terms than those offered by state-owned companies like in Mexico, which restricts foreigners to fee-for-service deals.