MADRID, Spain.- The state company Unión Cuba Petróleo (CUPET), responsible at the national level for the supply of gas, reported this Sunday that there could be interruptions in service in Havana due to a breakdown in one of its plants.
“At 12:10 today, Sunday May 21, there was a breakdown in the switch of the compressor system of the Puerto Escondido Plant that supplies gas to Havana, which causes only 40 to be received. % in manufactured gas production plants”, said CUPET in a brief note shared on the social network Facebook.
The company added that “if it is not resolved in the early hours of the morning, it could partially or totally affect the service to customers.”
So far CUPET has not updated the information on the breakdown.
The problems for the supply of manufactured gas, a fundamental source that a large number of people in the capital have to cook their food, is one of the many that Cubans have to constantly face.
At the beginning of the current year, the Havanans already saw the service interrupted, due to a breakdown in a section of the gas pipeline between Puerto Escondido and Boca de Jaruco.
In addition to breakdowns, the lack of cylinders to pack it, known as “balitas”, is another of the recurring situations. This is what happened last March, when “there was a shortage of cylinders to maintain the supply logistics at the points of sale, a situation that made distribution more complex,” according to what Lidia Rodríguez Suárez, commercial director of the Fuel Marketing Company of CUPET.
It is worth noting that in Cuba there is only one factory for the production of these cylinders, the Matanzas Conformation Company (Conformat).
Among the many problems presented by CUPET in recent years, there is also the shortage of fuel at gas stations, which causes extensive tails of drivers throughout the country, especially in Havana.