Production of Cuba's Central Oil Drilling and Extraction Enterprise (EPEPC) will grow six percent in 2003, an official source reported in Havana on Friday.

Firm Director Reynaldo Ruiz told reporters that EPEPC would fulfill its extraction plan of 1.735 million tons of oil. According to Ruiz, that amount is 100,000 tons superior to last year's production, with a substantial reduction of energy consumption. Ruiz attributed the increase to the introduction of state-of-the-art technology, among other factors, to extract crude oil and naphtha as a solvent.

EPEPC experts used a technique consisting of injecting wells with mixed polymers, in the form of jelly, a method that made it possible to reduce losses and recuperate 10,000 tons of oil.

The company first produced one million tons in 1995, and ever since, it has increased production and improved effectiveness to over 98 percent in more than 170 wells under exploitation.

The EPEPC is located in Cuba's western Matanzas province, where there exists one of the largest national crude oil fields. The crude oil extracted here is known as "heavy" because of its high content of sulfur, and it is mainly used to generate electricity and in cement production. The oil field also contains a large amount of gas, which used to be released to the atmosphere, thus polluting the environment. Taking advantage of such amounts of gas will account for 440 million cubic meters this year, which is used by Cuban ENERGAS Program, a Cuban-Canadian joint venture founded in December 2000 to produce electricity at low costs.

Experts from the sector consider that substituting gas for oil to generate electricity was a technological breakthrough in the industrial boiler system, with a positive ecological impact.