
A delegation from the American Chamber of Commerce has begun its first visit to Cuba in 15 years. Chamber president Thomas Donohue said he was in Cuba to assess the economic changes taking place under President Raul Castro.

Following Argentina's agreement to resolve its 9.7bn debt to Paris Club member nations within five years, American Task Force Argentina co-chairs Robert Shapiro and Ambassador Nancy Soderberg have declared their support for Argentina's pledge to act responsibly and encouraged the Argentine government to go further.

Foreign direct investment in Uruguay totaled 2.79bn dollars last year, which is slightly higher than the 2.68bn of 2012, equivalent to 5% of GDP, according to the latest report on FDI for the region from the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Brazil's government is considering proposals to open operatorship of its pre-salt projects to companies other than state-run Petrobras and this change might be made, Mayer Brown partner Alexandre R. Chequer told the law's firm's annual energy conference in Houston last week.

The great hype surrounding the advent of a shale gas bonanza in California may turn out to be just that: hype. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) – the statistical arm of the Department of Energy – has downgraded its estimate of the total amount of recoverable oil in the Monterey Shale by a whopping 96%. Its previous estimate pegged the recoverable resource in California’s shale formation at 13.7 billion barrels but it now only thinks that there are 600 million barrels available.

Argentina has won the geological lottery with its 305 meters-thick Vaca Muerta shale oil and gas field in Patagonia, a spokesman for Chevron said on Thursday, as the U.S. energy giant increases its investments in the country. The company and state-owned oil firm YPF announced plans last month to invest an additional 1.6 billion to develop Vaca Muerta.

Spanish oil company Repsol has ended its operations in Argentina, two years after the government seized its assets. Last month the Argentine congress gave final approval to pay 5bn dollars in compensation for Repsol's stake in Argentine oil firm YPF.

At least 15 more shale oil and gas wells will be drilled in Argentina's Patagonia Chubut province over the next three years, a provincial official said on Thursday, a day after its first shale discovery was made public.

The 5th Annual Global Mining Technology Forum will be held in October 2014 in Santiago to discuss the mining industry's way forward in technology adaptation. Fleming Gulf Conferences has announced that the 5th edition of it's flagship mining conference will take place in October 2014 in Santiago, Chile.

Ocean Rig has reportedly received a contract for its Eirik Raude semi-submersible rig for a drilling campaign in the Falkland Islands. According to Offshore.no, a Norwegian energy news website, the rig will be used by Noble Energy and Premier oil for their respective drilling campaigns in the Falkland Islands waters in 2015