MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Venezuela to explore for oil in Cuba

Venezuela will explore and eventually exploit hydrocarbons in Cuba according to a release published this week in Havana's official newspaper Gramma.

The agreement involves the two countries government owned oil companies, PDVSA and Cupet and was signed by Cuba's Basic Industry Minister Yadira Garcia and the Venezuelan oil company Exploration and Production manager Luis F. Vierma.

According to the release the agreement is in the framework of the cooperation between both countries contemplated in the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, ALBA, an initiative from Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez to counter the United States sponsored Free Trade Association of the Americas.

PDVSA which has a regional Caribbean office in Havana supplies Cuba with 98.000 barrels per day of crude and is working with Cupet in modernizing and upgrading the obsolete Soviet built Cienfuegos refinery and an oil sea terminal.

Both companies are also involved in the construction of a lubricant bottling plant and a deposit with a 600.000 barrels storage capacity for residual fuels.

PDVSA will then be joining other international corporations participating in the exploration and exploitation of oil in the north of Cuba. On land and offshore to the south operates Sherrit from Canada and Chinese companies, while in the Gulf of Mexico exclusion zone, Canada's Sherrit, Petrobras, Repsol-YPF among others.

Gramma also announced that next May 23 oil corporations from India and Norway will sign an agreement in Havana joining Repsol-YPF operations in the Gulf of Mexico.