Offshore staff
(US)- Republican Senator Larry Craig of Idaho is proposing legislation that would give US producers an exemption to explore for oil and natural gas in the Cuban waters of the Florida Straits.
The proposed legislation, which Craig plans to deliver within the coming week, would exempt domestic producers from a December 1977 treaty between the US and Cuba, which established a 313-mi long boundary separating the US-controlled side of the Florida Straits from Cuba's side.
Last December, President Bush renewed the 1977 treaty for two years.
Craig states that under current US policy, domestic producers cannot develop oil and natural gas fields that lie in Cuban waters and come within 50 mi of Florida. As the U.S. maintains its ban on drilling offshore Florida and in the eastern GoM, Cuba has partnered with other foreign countries to develop the fields that are "within spitting distance of our shores without competition from US industries," he said.
Craig complained about the US policy on the Senate floor in late April, saying producers are "hobbled by self-defeating laws and regulations that allow our economic adversaries and competitors to beat us to the punch right on our doorstep" in the Florida Keys.
Craig continued: "We have hamstrung the US energy sector from seeking additional resources in the region, while at the same time allowing the likes of China, Canada, Brazil, France and others to freely seek energy opportunities 50 mi off our coast without competition from state-of-the-art technologies and expertise of our own US gas and oil industries."
Craig noted. "We will miss a boat that won't sail twice if we don't allow US companies to at least explore the possibilities of new supplies in neighboring countries."
The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that undiscovered resources in Cuba's offshore economic zone may be as much as 4.6 Bbbl of oil and 9.8 tcf of natural gas. The Interior Department agency has been precluded from reviewing the resource potential of the US side of the Florida Keys.
Craig's legislation will face challenges from a number of lawmakers on Capitol Hill who are opposed to any economic relationship with Cuba as long as Fidel Castro is president.
5/11/2006
