Cuba has pledged to adopt all necessary environmental safeguards as it prepares to begin drilling five oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico, which it shares with Mexico and the United States. “We offer the same guarantees as the international oil community,” Manuel Marrero, the top oil expert at the Ministry of Basic Industry, told Tierramérica after a conference on oil exploration prospects in the Gulf, for which Cuba has high expectations.

Cuba’s economic zone in the Gulf of Mexico, an area 112,000 square kilometres in size, has been divided into 59 blocks available for joint ventures, and 22 have been leased to foreign companies.

At his conference, Marrero stressed that the oil rig to be used by Cuba’s partners is “one of the world’s safest and most modern,” but even so, the country has developed contingency plans to confront eventual risks such as hurricanes.