"OVL is looking for a partner for blocks N-34 and N-35. The firm believes exploration is a high risk and extremely cost intensive business due to the US embargo on Cuba. It wants to share this risk with a foreign company," a source privy to the development said.
Meanwhile, the Sun-Sentinel's Editorial Board, which just a few months ago was irresponsibly advocating for the unconditional lifting of all sanctions and empowering U.S. oil companies to turn Castro into a petro-dictator, now expresses "Relief Over Cuba Oil Bust":
"South Florida can sigh in relief — to a certain extent anyway.
Repsol, the Spanish energy conglomerate, announced last month that it would quit its oil exploration efforts off Cuba's northern coast — just 60 miles or so from Florida's southern coastline. However, a Malaysian company has said it's interested in drilling an exploratory well to the west of where Repsol was looking, so it's not all good news.
Nonetheless, Repsol's retreat raises doubts — and positive ones, for us anyway — about the prospects for developing an oil field in the Florida Straits. An oil field that, in the event of a spill like the one in the Gulf of Mexico two years ago, could put Florida's ecologically vital and economically critical marine environment at risk."
