[Marxism] Cuba and Soviet-era technology

["Walter Lippmann" <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This is a discussion of the points raised by David Walters
regarding Cuba, oil production and Soviet-era technology

I'm no expert on these matters and thank David Walters
for these comments. I've asked a friend here who knows
more about these matters than I do. She just retired
last year from the Ministry of Petroleum Planning where
she had worked for thirty+ years. She worked directly
with the Minister for Petroleum planning. She comments:

The Soviet technology may not have been the "state of the
art" as it was in the United States or the other Western
countries at that time. However, the United State and the
other Western countries weren't willing to give or to sell
"state of the art" technology to Cuba at that time, and as
far as we know, they're still not willing to years later.

Cuba never renounced its right to build whatever it needed
to meet the island's needs, including nuclear technology if
Cuba felt it needed that technology to do so. My neighbor
thinks David may be referring to the Chernobyl meltdown,
but she says Cuba's nuclear power plant had a different
and a safer technology in place, though as we all know,
Cuba never fired its nuke plant up.

Regarding Soviet-era technology, Sandra reminded me that
the Soviets built a space platform which is still being
used by the other countries who are engaged in the space
exploration process, even though the USSR doesn't exist.

Sandra (my neighbor) agrees that the efficiency rate
David mentions as not being the best, was as he states it.

Sandra explains that Cuba did in fact have a tiny amount
of its own domestic oil production, but it was marginal.
The island did have large refineries, nationalized by
the Revolution when they refused to refine Soviet crude
in 1960. The oil which Cuba drills and produces from its
own soil today is expensive to refine because impurities
such as sulfur make it costly to use. On the other hand,
the transportation costs are less than to bring oil from
the (no-longer-in-existence USSR), or even from nearby
Venezuela, whose oil is of a much higher quality. And
Cuba does own approximately 100% of its domestic oil.

The oil which has been located on the Mexican side of
the island of Cuba, drilled by Repsol YPF, the Spanish
company, has been confirmed to be of much better quality
than what's now produced on the island. Repsol YPF made
that assessment when oil was $40.00 per barrel, and said
AT THAT TIME, that though the oil was good, they saw it
as non-economic to produce. Now with oil well over $50.00
per barrel, and some economists talking about oil going
as high as even $80.00 per barrel, that oil become an
efficient and profitable possibility. Given the decline
of the dollar and the rise of the Euro, Cuba's decision
to kick the dollar habit cold turkey, and to encourage
a move over to really hard currencies, like the Euro,
will make a Spanish move forward with Cuban oil much
more probably and profitable, for both Spain and Cuba.

David's discussion of Cuba's distribution problems is
on-target. We continue to see localized blackouts,
which are the result of an aging infrastructure and
an increasing electrification process on the island.
But even these have been virtually non-existent where
I live in the past month.

I appreciate David's raising these questions which got
me to talking to Sandra about this area and through
which I've learned some useful new things.


Walter Lippmann
Havana, Cuba
=====================================================

DAVID WALTERS wrote:
On "Soviet era technology". Walter the technology the USSR
used in Cuba may of been state of the art for the USSR but
it certainly wasn't the "state" of technology for anywhere
else. Like their nuclear power plants (which, thank the
gods, the Cubans finally cancelled) all of which didn't
include reinforced containment domes like Western ones do,
their "regular" power production was nothing to brag about.
Their heat rates (the actual measure of a plants
efficiency: megawatts out to total Btu content/fuel going
in) were dismally high (high being bad, a low heat rate
being better).

The Soviets didn't have to worry about efficiency because
they had the largest production of oil in the world. They
also had coal reserves near that of the US. Cuba's
electrical system was designed for a economy based on
fossil fuel abundance which Cuba is not of course. However,
Cuba also had zero alternatives at the time.

A large part of Cuba's problems isn't only production, it's
distribution. Older distribution transformers, analog
sensing devices, and human operator input to make
corrections. I understand that Cuba in the last 5 years has
made extensive upgrades in all this, and I'm glad to see
it. . . and partly with methods and technology developed
locally in the country.




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