Word: crude
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However, analysts say that for Calderon to be able to touch the sacred cow of Mexican oil at all is a major advance, which could open the door to deeper changes in the following years in Mexico, the third biggest supplier of crude to the United States after Canada and Saudi Arabia. "The law creates a very important framework on which more regulations can be developed," said energy analyst David Shields. "It allows for contracts with foreign companies that can be much more flexible than anything we have seen before...
Washington's own Cuba time warp got a jolt as well. The oil discovery has renewed debate over whether a crude-thirsty U.S. should loosen its 46-year-old trade embargo against Cuba and let yanqui firms join the drilling, which is taking place fewer than 100 miles off U.S. shores. Despite the Bush Administration's hard line on Cuba, Republicans in Congress have proposed legislation to exempt Big Oil from the embargo. That clamor is sure to rise - especially if Barack Obama, who is more open to dialogue with Havana, becomes the next President - now that Cuba's state...
...maritime find less attractive to the potential international partners Cuba needs to extract the oil. The effort is all the more urgent, they add, because reduced oil revenues could also make friends like left-wing Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez less able to aid Cuba with cut-rate crude shipments and capital to improve the island's aged refineries. "The Cuba numbers from my point of view are not valid," says Jorge Pinon, an energy fellow at the University of Miami and an expert on Cuba's oil business. "I think they're feeling a lot of pressure right...
...Miami's Pinon says the more serious issue is refining capacity: even if Cuba has only the low estimate of 5 billion bbl. - which could yield more than 300,000 BPD - it needs Venezuela's investment to upgrade refineries like the Soviet-built plant at Cienfuegos. But plummeting crude prices mean that Chávez may have a lot less wealth to spread around for his petro-diplomacy projects. "Like the collapse of the Soviet Union," says Pinon, "this kind of thing has always been Cuba's Achilles' heel...
...given Iran - OPEC's second-biggest oil producer - a cushion to neutralize the impact of Western sanctions over its nuclear program, and to ameliorate the effect of a struggling economy. But because Iran imports crucial refined diesel to keep its cars and factories running, it needs to sell its crude oil for $60 a barrel or more, according to oil analysts. So, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has plenty of incentive to push his OPEC colleagues to vote for production cuts: If falling prices force his government to cut its heavy gasoline subsidies, he won't help his chances of reelection...