Cuba: 2007, a good year for oil

For the third time, Cuba’s oil production will reach 4 million tons this year, which it has not done since 2003, and which is particularly important now given the fact that the price of crude on the international market is more than $90 per barrel.

This has been a good year for oil, affirmed Carlos Lage Davila, secretary of the Executive Committee of the Council of Ministers, speaking in this city in Matanzas province. He specified that Cuba now produces 47% of the fuel it consumes and generates 15% of its electricity with accompanying gas from oil production.
Accompanied by fellow Political Bureau member Yadira Garcia Vera, minister of basic industry, Lage visited the EPEP-C (Oil Drilling and Extraction Enterprise of Centro) on Tuesday, December 25, just a few hours before its production reached a total of one million tons of crude, a figure it has maintained for the last two years.

Lage said that by the close of this year, 2,908,000 tons of crude will have been obtained, and approximately 1.215 million cubic meters of gas, the equivalent of just over one million tons of oil.

Referring to the significance of these results, he underlined the importance of the increased production and utilization of 97% of accompanying gas. He said that necessary investments had been made to prevent environmental pollution from this gas being released into the air, and at the same time, to use this oil equivalent for generating electricity at a much lower cost.

Granma