democracia participativa y derechos humanos / participatory democracy & human rights

• Cuba's largely unexplored share of the Gulf of Mexico is thought to contain billions of barrels of oil and gas equivalent
• A first consortium grouping Spain's Repsol, Norway's Norsk Hydro and India's ONGC Videsh will drill two wells
• A second consortium, made up of Malaysia's Petronas and Russia's Gazprom, will drill subsequent wells

Feb.3.─ Despite announcing last month that the Scarabeo 9 oil rig now off Cuba "generally" meets acceptable safety standards, U.S. federal officials acknowledged this week that results of their inspection of the platform would have prohibited it from drilling in U.S. waters.

Testifying before a U.S. House panel at a hearing at a Sunny Isles Beach hotel Monday, Lars Herbst, Gulf of Mexico director of the Department of Interior's Bureau of Safety and Environmental Inspections, said under questioning that his agency's inspection was not as thorough as it would have been if the rig were under U.S. oversight.

Herbst told Republican members of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure that DOI found unsafe welding and incomplete wiring on safety systems that the United States government would demand be fixed before allowing the rig to operate in U.S.-controlled areas of the Florida Straits or the Gulf of Mexico.

The inspection was done off the coast of Trinidad and Tobago in early January at the invitation of Repsol, the Spanish company that is the first of several international energy companies to lease the Scarabeo 9 ...

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