"Cuba's green gold"

From Jorge Pinon, a former Amoco executive now at the University of Miami, here’s an evaluation of Cuba’s energy potential, based on the possibilities of oil and ethanol development, and based on partnerships with foreign capital and a “free-market agricultural economic model.” A future surge in Cuban energy production would have strategic consequences, not the least of which would be to make it unnecessary for Cuba to receive cut-rate oil supplies from Venezuela. (Pinon estimates that Cuba could reach half a million barrels of oil production per day.) Meantime, a Cuban official tells Reuters that there’s little likelihood of foreign investment in the agriculture sector, “for now.”