THECUBAREVIEW 17 



PETROLEUM IN CUBA 



By Pablo Ortega 



Cuba is undoubtedly the first American country in which bituminous products, hydro- 

 carbons, crude oil and asphalt, solid and liquid, were discovered. In loOS, fifteen years after 

 the discovery of America, Sebastian Ocampo, according to the first historians of Cuba, found 

 on the shore of Havana Harbor, a soft asphalt, called Maltha. The same deposit may be 

 observed near the shore to-day. Ocampo used it for caulking his vessels and i)ainting the bot- 

 toms. Owing to this incident the Bay was called "Puerto Carenas," by whi(!h name it was 

 known until 1519, when the settlement of Havana, previously located on the southern shore, 

 near Batabanao, was transferred to the spot now occupied by the caiiital of the Republic. 



This deposit on the shore of Havana Bay is mentioned by Olviedo in l.")35, who speaks 

 also of a field of asphalt along the coast of Camaguey, formerly Puerto Principe. At the 

 beginning of the 19th century, Baron Humboldt visited the Island and studied both its flora 

 and mineral products. He mentioned the petroleum well of Guanabacoa ridge, near Havana, 

 where the mineral baths of Santa Rita formerly stood. 



Richard Cowling Taylor and Thomas C. Clcmson, in a work published in 1837 on bitum- 

 inous carbon, mentioned the petroleum wells in Guanabacoa that had been known for two 

 centuries and were undoubtedly the same of which Humboldt spoke. Previously, in 1828, La 

 Sagra described petroleum fields located near Havana, and in 1829, Joaquin Jose Navarro 

 described several deposits of bituminous material in his report to the "Real Sociedad Patriotica.' 



Taylor and Clemson state that near the deposits described by them, and which two years 

 afterwards proved to be solid asphalt that was employed in large quantites as a substitute for 

 coal, they found crude petroleum filling cavities or cells in masses of chaceldony, a few yards 

 distant from the saphalt. The place referred to has been ceded to the mining companies of 

 Hautey & San Carlos, not far from the town of San Francisco de Paula, twelve kilometers from 

 Havana, and is evidently the same old mine known as Casualidad, referred to by Taylor and 

 Clemson, where the original wells may still be seen. The same surface signs of petroleum may 

 be observed in that part of the jjrovince. 



In the report on bituminous products of the Island of Cuba by C. Moisant, civil engineer, 

 there is a table of asphalt fields in Cuba, in which is mentioned a liquid asphalt or petroleum 

 found in Madruga, a small town southeast of Havana, well known for its sulphur baths. This 

 petroleum, according to investigations of recent date, flows from cavities in the serpentine 

 rocks, found in considerable ma.sses in Madruga and the surrounding towns. 



In 1867 a claim called Abeja was registered for oil on the Las Minas farm, 18 kilometers 

 east of Havana, in the district of Bacuranao, formerly east of Havana, in the district of Bacu- 

 ranao, formerly known as Barreras. The owner of the claim purposed to extract the petroleum 

 by sinking wells, since he had noticed oil indications in the cavities of the rocks on the surface. 

 A well was opened which yielded some oil at a depth of 61 meters. This was sunk later to 129 

 meters but was afterwards abandoned. In recent times in the vicinity of the Santiago claim, 

 several wells have been drilled that produced a considerable amount of crude oil. 



In the year 1867 the asphalt mine known as Santa Teresa, formerly called Prosperidad, was 

 registered for the purpose of investigating the existence of petroleum, but the work was in 

 vain, as in the case of the Mina Abeja. We have been informed that a new well called Belencita 

 located near Santa Teresa, 18 kilometers east of Havana on the road to Campo Florida, and 

 not far from the town of Minas, will soon be sunk in search of petroleum. 



We may also mention a claim called San Jose, located on the old Tomasita plantation, in 

 the municipal district of Banes, west of Havana. This claim was examined in 1880 by the gen- 

 eral inspector of mines, Pedro Salterain, who reported the presence of liquid asphalt, or a low 

 grade of crude that flowed from a serpentine dike that cropped out. The product was used for 

 lighting this plantation. 



All the wells in Havana Province referred to above are located on lands considered by 

 geologists as belonging to the cretaceous period, such as the districts of Guanabacoa and Banes. 

 The same may be said of the oil lands in the Province of Matanzas, in Sabanilla de la Palma 

 and Lagunillas. 



