The global energy landscape is shifting under our feet, and the latest tremors are being felt in the Caribbean. A senior CIA official is en route to Havana, as multiple British energy companies position themselves to exploit newly confirmed oil reserves off Cuba's northern coast. This is not a story about politics, though politics will colour every frame. It is a story about physics, geology, and the relentless arithmetic of supply and demand.
The reserves in question lie in the North Cuba Basin, an extension of the same geological formation that has made Mexico a major producer. Recent seismic surveys, conducted by a consortium including BP and Shell, suggest recoverable volumes in the order of 5 to 10 billion barrels. For perspective, that is roughly equivalent to two years of UK consumption. But this is no windfall. Extracting heavy, sour crude from deep waters 30 kilometres offshore is a costly and technically fraught endeavour. The average break-even price for such projects hovers around $70 per barrel. With global prices already above $90 and trending upward, the arithmetic suddenly becomes compelling.
But the context is far more urgent. The International Energy Agency's latest data shows global spare production capacity at its lowest level since the 1970s. OECD commercial oil stocks have fallen to 2.7 billion barrels, a 15-year low. Meanwhile, demand continues to climb as the post-pandemic recovery collides with the brutal reality of a world that has underinvested in fossil fuel extraction for nearly a decade. The energy transition is real, but it is not happening fast enough to replace the 80 million barrels per day we currently burn.
This is where Cuba enters the frame. The country has long been a geological outlier: surrounded by proven reserves but lacking the capital, technology, and political stability to develop its own. The US embargo has been the single biggest barrier. But with American influence waning and the European Union diversifying its energy sources, that barrier is cracking. British firms, operating through subsidiaries and joint ventures with Canadian and Norwegian partners, are already conducting environmental impact assessments in the Gulf of Mexico.
The CIA involvement is telling. The Director's emergency trip suggests that Washington views this development as a strategic threat, not an economic opportunity. Cuba sits 150 kilometres from Florida. An oil boom in the hands of a regime that has historically been hostile to American interests could shift the balance of power in the region. But there is another, more pressing concern: the risk of an environmental catastrophe. The waters off Cuba are home to critical coral reef ecosystems and serve as migratory routes for endangered species. A spill here, in a region with limited response infrastructure, would be biologically devastating.
Yet the British government is acting with characteristic pragmatism. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has quietly approved export credit guarantees for exploration equipment. The Treasury sees a hedge against North Sea depletion. And the Foreign Office views this as a wedge issue to deepen ties with Havana, potentially opening markets for pharmaceuticals and agricultural technology.
This is a complicated calculus, but the underlying physics is simple. We are extracting carbon from the lithosphere and dumping it into the atmosphere. Every barrel burned adds nearly half a tonne of CO2 to the air. The North Cuba Basin alone could add 4 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide to our planetary experiment. That is roughly 10% of the world's annual emissions. We are gambling with the only climate we have.
I report these facts with what I call calm urgency. Calm because panic helps no one. Urgent because the data are clear. The world is not on track to meet its Paris Agreement commitments. Global temperatures are on course to rise by 2.7 degrees Celsius by 2100. Every new oil field brings us closer to that number. Every barrel extracted is a bet against our children's future.
The question is no longer whether we will adapt. We will. The question is how much damage we will endure along the way. The answer will be written in the contracts signed in Havana, the pipelines laid in the Gulf, and the carbon molecules that will linger in the atmosphere for centuries. As the CIA chief lands and the British executives sharpen their pencils, I ask you to remember the basic truth: thermodynamics does not care about geopolitics. It only keeps score.
