Oil Exploration and Cuba

[TBF]

2. It is all I've found so far -

And we KNOW there has to be an independent economic reason for this - it is not happening out of the goodness of our heart. One, focus is all of a sudden off torture. Second, something down there is wanted. When we left off before the revolution this is what was happening:

New York Times
January 8, 1958. p. 88.

Oil Exploration Pushed in Cuba As Major Companies Get Rights

Special to The New York Times

HAVANA—The search for petroleum in Cuba, which brought a rush of wildcat oil operators to the scene and created a near boom in 1954 and 1955, has settled down to scientific exploration and test drilling.

There has been no big oil strike here despite the fact that 100,000 of holes has been drilled in the Island since may 1954. The shallow wells drilled in the small fields of Camaguey and Havana Provinces produced only 50 to 200 barrels daily.

According to the Cuba Petroleum News Digest of Havana, production of petroleum in Cuba was 57,163 barrels in 1954, 381,824 barrels in 1955 and 543,121 in 1956. In the first half of 1957 193,160 barrels was produced. Some drilling is still going on in the known fields but the production is declining.

Many of the independent oil companies have turned their leases over to major companies. These companies plan to drill several deep test wells this year.
http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/cuba/NYT-1-8-58a.htm

There could be other things going on as well - this is just what I've found so far. I encourage others to do some digging as well ...