Miguel Díaz-Canel concludes his visit to Namibia “with a flourish”, headlines the official Cuban press this Tuesday on the trip that the President has just undertaken to several countries in southern Africa. Cubadebate tells it, which is limited to the symbolic aspect of the trip and does not say a word about “the high hopes surrounding Namibia’s oil and gas potential”.
This quote comes from an exchange between 14ymedio and Professor Jorge Piñón, an academic and specialist in the oil sector at the University of Texas (USA). The expert believes that Havana has its sights set on the African country that could soon become another Venezuela.
It was Díaz-Canel’s first visit to Windhoek as head of state, although exchanges between Cuba and Namibia were constant as the island contributed to the war in which it gained independence from South Africa. Travel from one side of the Atlantic to the other was common during the tenures of former Presidents Fidel and Raúl Castro, and cooperation between the two nations was extensive, particularly in the areas of health, education, agriculture, sports and fisheries.
The first oil production is not expected to reach Namibia until 2029, but the infrastructure is already under construction
Namibia’s nearly 1,000 miles of coastline has attracted the attention of several large multinationals. “Shell, Total, FLAG, Qatar, Chevron and Exxon have invested heavily in exploration activities in the region and have already discovered reserves of at least 11 billion barrels of light oil and up to 13 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in the basin. Orange,” adds the professor.
Results are still pending as Namibia is not expected to reach first oil production until 2029, but infrastructure is already under construction and could represent an excellent opportunity for the country. According to state-owned hydrocarbon company Namcor, the country could be among the top 15 oil exporters by 2035, and per capita gross domestic product (GDP) could double in less than a decade.
Exactly in April 2021, Namibia and Venezuela met for the first time on the oil field on the basis of a cooperation agreement signed in 2020. Since then, Caracas has been advising the African country on how to exploit the enormous riches that lie in the depths of its coast. He compensates for this by using his mining experience.
“Cuba and Namibia have enjoyed a long and deep political relationship for more than forty years, as illustrated by President Miguel Díaz-Canel’s recent state visit to Windhoek, the capital of Namibia,” Piñón recalls.
Havana has sent a total of 1,194 doctors on international missions to the country since 1990, according to a statement from the Ministry of Health this Sunday. There is currently a group of 80 toilets operating in eleven of Namibia’s fourteen regions, which Díaz-Canel met during his visit.
According to Piñón, it’s possible that Havana will decide “to increase the current Cuban medical workers in Namibia through the exchange of oil, thereby expanding a crucial branch of the Cuban economy,” a habitual practice of the regime using its health workers as such negotiation chip. , although it also uses teachers, soldiers, and engineers.
Before his time in Namibia, Díaz-Canel was in Angola, one of the most important oil powers in sub-Saharan Africa.
Before his time in Namibia, Díaz-Canel was in Angola, one of the major oil powerhouses in sub-Saharan Africa (second largest continent on the continent and sixteenth globally).
Mozambique, the Cuban President’s second stop – along with South Africa, where he attended the Brics summit in his capacity as interim president of the G-77 plus China – is currently one of the top exporters of natural gas, particularly to Europe, filling the gap left behind by Russia after invading Ukraine. But in recent years, the world’s major oil companies are also targeting this country, trying to exploit some promising deposits in the Rovuma Basin.
Díaz-Canel, in addition to the economic problems in general, has already devoted itself to solving their fuel problems in Algeria, Turkey, Russia and China last winter. Now he has dedicated another winter – the Australian one – to the search for a new Venezuela
in other latitudes. A tropical storm awaited him upon his return, which was already beginning to leave entire communities on the island without power.
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