Gulf of Mexico

Military’s port development project

April 9, 2011

A promotional 10 minute video was posted on YouTube earlier this week illustrating Cuba’s project to develop (with financing from Brazilian credit) the Port of Mariel, which would include a new pier, cargo terminal, roadways, railways, and warehouses. Companhia de Obras e Infra-estrutura (COI) a Brazilian corp. (a subsidiary of Odebrecht, S.A.) is involved in this project [...]

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The geological solution

November 20, 2010

via The Economist‘s Americas blog: For years, international Cuba watchers have predicted two possible solutions to the island’s economic problems. The “biological solution” is the death of Fidel Castro. The “geological solution” is a major oil discovery in Cuba’s section of the Gulf of Mexico. Most have assumed that biology would win. So far, neither [...]

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Notable and Quotable

August 30, 2010

Preparations for full-scale oil exploration are gaining momentum in Cuba’s Gulf of Mexico waters just 50 miles from the US. [Financial Times] “I was at death’s door, but I came back.”  [Fidel Castro's interview in La Jornada] Eight more arrested according to the Ladies in White.  Three human rights activists in Havana and five members [...]

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U.S.-Cuba environmental cooperation

June 10, 2010

In early May, the Brookings Institution published a study on U.S.-Cuba environmental cooperation when dealing with the potential risks of oil exploration in shared ocean waters: As Cuba continues to develop its deepwater oil and natural gas reserves, the consequence to the United States of a similar mishap occurring in Cuban waters moves from the [...]

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Risk For Another Gulf Spill?

June 3, 2010

Via Burn After Reading: The Obama administration has allowed an oil delegation travel clearance to Cuba out of fear that drilling efforts in Cuba’s Gulf of Mexico could result in another toxic oil rig blowout. The International Association of Drilling Contractors, which represents the global drilling industry, will send the United States’ first oil delegation [...]

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Geostrategic importance

December 17, 2008

“Cuba is the key to the Gulf of Mexico, and also controls three entrances to the Caribbean-the Yucatan, Windward and Mona passages…between the three possible bases for attempted control of the Caribbean, no doubts can remain that Cuba is the most powerful, Jamaica next, and the Antilles least.” -Alfred Thayer Mahan, “Strategic Features of the [...]

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