Deep-water drilling will resume in the Florida
Strait when a giant, semi-submersible oil rig
en route from Singapore arrives later this fall.
The bad news is it will not be American.
While U.S. oil and energy prices "necessarily
skyrocket," as President Obama once said they
would under energy policies that have imposed
a de facto ban on offshore drilling, a massive
Chinese-built semi-submersible oil rig is on
its way from Singapore to a drilling position
off northwest Cuba perhaps as little as 50
miles from Key West, Fla.
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Normally, what are called "economic zones"
extend 200 miles off a country's coastline.
In some cases, there are conflicts based on
resources and geography. In 1977, President
Carter signed a treaty with communist Cuba
that essentially split the difference and
created for Cuba an "exclusive economic
zone" extending from the western tip of
Cuba northward virtually to Key West.
Cuba then divided its side of the Florida
Strait into 59 parcels and put them up
for lease.
The U.S. Geological Survey recently estimated
the North Cuban Basin contains as much as 9
billion barrels of oil and 22 trillion cubic
feet of natural gas. Other estimates range
from 5 billion to 20 billion barrels of crude.
Pools of oil and natural gas tend not to obey
lines drawn on a map. It's certain that at
least some of Cuba's wells will be tapping
oil pools that straddle the boundary separating
our zone from Cuba's, meaning Havana will be
getting oil that should be ours.
