A Spanish company's plan to begin drilling for oil in Cuba's waters has U.S. oil experts and companies wary of the potential for a disaster much like the Deepwater Horizon blowout.

The new wells will be 50 miles from the Florida Keys, close enough that oil from a blowout could reach their shores in just three days. Cuba does not have the resources needed to fix rig equipment should something like that happen, but the trade embargo that the U.S. government imposed on Cuba 48 years ago blocks U.S. drilling companies -- and their resources -- from being involved in the country's oil industry.

Big American oil companies, which have lobbied the government for years to join in Cuba's oil industry, are now seeking a reprieve from that embargo on the grounds that they could provide equipment for oil spills on short notice.

"What is needed is for international oil companies in Cuba to have full access to U.S. technology and personnel in order to prevent and/or manage a blowout," said Jorge Piñón, a former executive of BP PLC and Amoco Corp.

Cuba's oil industry is mainly run by foreign companies and produces little oil now. But its potential reserves could bring it up to the level of the oil industries in Ecuador or Colombia and help its lagging economy.

According to Lee Hunt, president of the International Association of Drilling Contractors, Cuban Vice Minister of Basic Industry Tomás Benítez Hernández asked that he take this message back to the United States: "Senior officials told us they are going ahead with their deepwater drilling program, that they are utilizing every reliable non-U.S. source that they can for technology and information, but they would prefer to work directly with the United States in matters of safe drilling practices" (Clifford Krauss, New York Times, Sept. 29). -- AP