Miscellaneous Prospective Resources

The Exclusive Economic Zone is a delineated offshore area, mostly to the west and north of Cuba which under international agreements is owned by Cuba. This 112,000 square kilometer zone has been divided into 59 exploration blocks. A 2004 joint partnership between a Spanish oil company and Cuba’s state oil company (CUPET) estimated Cuba's off-shore reserves to be able to ultimately produce between 4.6 and 9.3 billion barrels of crude oil. The US Geologica (USGS) estimates that Cuba has resources up to 9 billion barrels (1.4×109 m3) of oil. In October 2008, the Cuban government announced that it had discovered oil basins which would double its total oil resources to 20 billion barrels (3.2×109 m3). Note that consistent with the definitions of Reserves and Resources as given in the above sections, at this stage (June 2009), given no commercial discoveries to date, all recoverable oil estimates in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) are Prospective Resources estimates and not Reserves estimates.