Tucked neatly into Forbes’ current International Investing Guide edition is Alex Davidson’s interesting piece on Cuba’s investment potential. While much of the focus is on post-embargo opportunities that may emerge in the tourism, agricultural, transport, and infrastructure sectors (especially those for American companies with a large presence in Miami), I found his discussion of Cuba’s natural resource potential most interesting:

“… As for its resources, joint ventures in Cuba with the nickel and cobalt industries brought in $1.3 billion in 2005, while estimates of offshore oil reserves are at 5 billion barrels and of natural gas reserves at 10 trillion cubic feet… Cuba looks likely to get a share of the “Eastern Gap” a portion of the Gulf of Mexico fields that will ultimately be split with Mexico and the U.S., according to Piñon. This is in addition to the North Cuba Basin’s reserves….

…While America sits on the sidelines, there are 258 foreign joint ventures and 115 cooperative production contracts currently in Cuba. Among these are Canada’s Sherritt International, which has invested more than $500 million in onshore oil and gas exploration. Oil companies from Spain, India, Malaysia and Norway, as well as Sherritt, now hold 16 offshore deepwater blocks; Brazil’s Petrobras is also rumored to be expressing interest. Lloyd’s of London has been in the reinsurance business in Cuba, while Telecom Italia is a shareholder in Etecsa, Cuba’s national phone company.

Seems like there is a lot of work already going on.