Minister: Cuba open to American investment in oil ventures, but blocked by U.S.

[Judi Lynn]

Source: International Herald Tribune

The Associated Press
Published: March 20, 2007


HAVANA: Cuba is open to American companies that want to join the communist country's new oil-drilling ventures but any such deals are being blocked by Washington, the minister overseeing energy matters said Tuesday.

Basic Industry Minister Yadira Garcia said exploratory drilling in the Gulf of Mexico should start to yield profits by 2011.

"A lot of American companies have been coming, they know about our studies ... but we are not the ones limiting them," Garcia told reporters at an international gathering on earth sciences.

Garcia said it was "a good moment" for Washington to let American oil companies invest in the Cuban market. Currently, a long-standing U.S. trade embargo prohibits most American trade and investment with the communist-run island.



Read more: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/03/20/business/CB-FIN-Cuba-US-Petroleum.php

[robcon]

1. The idea that Cuba will privatize the oil industry is not believable.

n/t

[Marth]

2. Privatization isn't the idea...

joint ventures are.

[Judi Lynn]

3. That would be the logical conclusion, wouldn't it?

Welcome to D.U.

[Mika]

4. All joint ventures in Cuba are majority owned by the Cuban gov/people. n/t

[robcon]

5. Not true.

My former company, Pernod-Ricard, is in a 50/50 relationship with the Cuban government (not the Cuban people) on Havana Club rum, which is strong in Western Europe. Havana Club is the #1 (Italy) or #2 (much of the rest of Western European countries) rum there.

[Mika]

6. Not really. There might be a 50/50 on international trademark revenue, but not ownership.

http://www.american.edu/ted/bacardi.htm

As I understand it, the french company, Pernod Ricard, is simply a reseller of Havana Club. The trademark and product are Cuba owned and produced.

[robcon]

7. The joint venture owns the trademark.

Not the Cuban government. Pernod-Ricard has borne the costs of the trademark troubles in the U.S. and Spain on Havana Club, where Bacardi, the family that originally owned the trademark, has sued to prevent its sale by the JV (in the future, in the case of the U.S.; and in the present in Spain.)

Pernod-Ricard lost its case in the U.S., and lost its appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Pernod-Ricard won in Spain. So Bacardi owns the trademark in the U.S., and Pernod-Ricard just recently affirmed its right, on behalf of the JV, to the Havana Club trademark in Spain.

The JV owns the production facilities and the product, as well as the trademark.