Cuba Extracting More Oil, Saving More with Wind Parks

Havana, Dec 17. -Last year, the western Cuban Oil Extraction and Drilling Enterprise extracted more than 7,330,000 barrels, which contributed to the reduction of oil imports.

The general director of the enterprise, Joel Pumariega, praised the efforts of entities associated to the Santa Cruz del Norte facilities, which allowed meeting the electricity needs of the Cuban capital and maintaining a stable supply of gas for cooking to more than one million people.

The workers of this enterprise aim at attaining more efficiency in the exploitation of oilfields, the implementation of modern technologies, and the training of personnel so as to achieve better results.

This enterprise, which is made up of three big production groups, must increase its efficiency levels in view of the high prices of hydrocarbons in the international market.

On the other hand, two wind parks located in the eastern province of Holguin reportedly produced almost 10,000 megawatt/hour in 2010, considered a major contribution to the National Electric Grid.

Head of the Holguin Wind Parks engineer Jose Luis Piferrer said that this output had allowed the country to save some 2,225 tons of oil (close to 17,000 barrels)

Piferrer said that thanks to that clean source of energy, some 275 million cubic feet of polluting gases had been prevented from entering the atmosphere, including carbon dioxide.

The Gibara I uses Spanish technology and has six equipments. It has produced in three years 18,470 megawatts, despite being severely damaged by Hurricane Ike in September 2008.

Chinese-made Gibara II started operations at the end of November 2010 and has contributed with 394 Megawatt with five of its six wind turbines.

Head of the Energy Department in Holguin Hector Lugo highlighted the importance of this amount of energy the two farms produce with winds that reached steadily six meter per second forces. (Prensa Latina)