As Cuba is rocked by blackouts and a deepening energy crisis, Mexico has sent almost half a million barrels of crude oil and diesel in just a few days to its main Caribbean ally, according to data The Associated Press had access on Thursday.
The island has been able to function for years thanks to the arrival of Russian and Venezuelan fuel, but when those shipments ran out, Mexico has become one of the island’s few lifelines.
“Mexico is now key because, as you know, Venezuela has stopped supplying oil to Cuba and Russian oil is nowhere to be found,” explained Jorge Piñón, a senior researcher at the Energy Center who tracks shipments using oil tracking services and satellite technology.
That is why now its fuel shipments “are extremely important,” added the academic.
Some 412,000 barrels of crude oil from the Mexican state oil company, Pemex, arrived in the city of Cienfuegos between Wednesday night and Thursday morning, according to data collected by Piñón.
Another 67,000 barrels of what appears to be diesel were shipped Wednesday night and are scheduled to arrive in Santiago de Cuba early next week.
These shipments, worth approximately 31 million dollars, are added to the 300 million in fuel sent by Mexico to Cuba since the beginning of 2023, said Piñón.
The supply stopped for six months, when Mexico was immersed in the entire electoral process, but after the inauguration of Claudia Sheinbaum as president, the oil flowed again.
The Mexican president, when asked about this issue on Thursday at her press conference, did not offer details and answered in a generic way that Mexico will continue to help the island.
“We are going to support Cuba for humanitarian reasons,” he indicated. “Even if there is criticism, we are going to be supportive.”
The recent shipments represent a small fraction of the oil that Mexico produces in a day, between 1.6 and 1.8 million barrels. For Cuba, the amount is insufficient to overcome the energy deficit in which the country lives.
The Cuban government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This supply arrives in a extremely delicate moment for Cuba. Large-scale blackouts at the beginning of the month left millions of residents—already hit hard by the economic crisis—without electricity for days.
The Cuban government has had to deal with existing frustrations and some protests after drastically raising the price of gasoline, which further affected the economy of Cubans who have difficulty acquiring the most basic foods, such as eggs or chicken. .
The Cuban government blames its woes on the embargo imposed by the United States, but Cuba’s electrical grid is in poor condition and the country’s government has not invested in alternative energy such as solar for a long time, despite the abundance of sunshine.
As a result, the main energy source has been fossil fuels.
The government depended for a long time on its great ally in the region, Venezuela, until this country was also plunged into a deep crisis, not only economic but also political and social.
In recent years, Cuba has relied on Russia, which just two years ago sent hundreds of millions of dollars in fuel, which was a great relief for the Cuban government and helped Vladimir Putin’s government avoid international sanctions imposed by Russia. his invasion of Ukraine.
But much of that support ended despite Russian promises that it would send more aid. After months without supplying anything, in September Piñón detected a shipment of 119,000 barrels of Russian fuel.
The Cuban Minister of Energy and Mines, Vicente de la O Levy, said at the end of October that the governments of Russia, Venezuela and also the government of Colombia “are constantly communicating” to see how they can help the island.
Still, De la O Levy said Thursday in a message on X that the government only had half the energy needed to keep the lights on during peak hours.
Although Mexico has been a traditional ally of Havana and has taken a stand against US sanctions, it is unclear whether it is sending oil for free or at a reduced price.
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