In Havana most gas stations no longer deliver

Havana / Holguín /Under the irregular shade of a tree in a park in Holguín, Genaro waits for someone to approach with a matchbox. The scene has been repeated for more than a decade: a folding table, several gas sprays, screwdrivers and pliers. For years, that small family business, refilling disposable lighters, allowed them to eat. Today, however, the lack of fuel threatens to extinguish that minimal flame as well. “Now it is cheaper to buy a new one than to repair it because gas has become very expensive,” he says, while arranging the tools with a mechanical gesture.

Genaro charges 100 pesos for each matchbox he fills and 50 more if the stone has to be changed. Until recently, that rate guaranteed a constant trickle of customers. Today, the flow has been drastically reduced. “This is no longer business and if things get worse,” he warns, “I will have to look for something else.” Their occupation, that of rescuing what is thrown away in other countries, becomes unviable in a context where even gas to refill lighters has become a luxury.

The problem is not limited to your makeshift table. At home, he explains, he cooks with firewood and liquefied gas “when it appears.” The gas cylinder, that small cylinder that sustains the domestic life of thousands of families, already costs 50,000 Cuban pesos in the informal market of Holguín. “You hardly find it and when someone offers it to you then they can sit down and ask, because people are desperate.” At state outlets, supply was suspended weeks ago and there is no date for its resumption.

The cutoff of Venezuelan oil supplies, following the capture of Nicolás Maduro by US troops, has further strained a daily life already marked by shortages. What happens in Caracas translates, almost immediately, into unlit stoves, paralyzed businesses and reduced transportation in Cuba. The island’s energy dependence turns any shock in the South American country into a domestic tremor.

In Havana, the situation is reflected in the empty gas stations and in the conversations that are repeated under the roofs of the state-owned Cupet. In the Telegram groups where virtual queues are organized, the discouragement is palpable. This Saturday, in Habana del Este only 11 gas stations offered service; another 10 were completely out of supplies. In the west of the capital, seven service centers had closed on Friday. No one dares to predict an improvement in the short term.

The mechanism for purchasing gasoline has become a digital labyrinth. To apply for a shift you must register in the Ticket application, enter your identification card number, traffic information and vehicle registration number. Hopefully, confirmation comes in two or three months. But even then, the result can be frustrating: on the appointed day there may only be motor or regular gasoline, with a lower octane rating, unusable for many vehicles.

A tour this Saturday through several service centers in Havana confirms the panorama. The central gas station on G and 25, in El Vedado, woke up without fuel. The scene is repeated in its neighbor La Rampa. Only in the nearby Tángana there was some supply left for those waiting with a Ticket shift, and in the entire central area only the location on L and 17 continued to ship with some normality.

Under the red sign of “Your friend 24 hours a day” on G and 25, three men are talking. They start talking about gasoline, but soon the talk drifts to Caracas, warnings from Washington and statements from Marco Rubio, who urges Havana to choose between “change and collapse.” International politics sneaks into his words as another explanation of the empty tank.

“The play is tight, I have never seen it so tough,” says a motorcyclist who approached the Cupet just to confirm the obvious. You have a power plant at home and urgently need fuel. “My mother is bedridden with a relapse of chikungunya,” he says. With the generator they try to mitigate the blackouts that have been hitting even previously privileged areas of the capital for months. “In my house we are preparing for the worst, because this is just beginning.”

In the Cupets of Vía Blanca and La Coubre, the dispatch this Saturday was limited to state vehicles, the same as in the La Shell roundabout, in Guanabacoa. Rafael, a Spanish businessman temporarily living in Cuba, told this newspaper about his unsuccessful tour of several service centers in the Playa municipality. “When I asked the employees, they told me they had no idea when I would come back in. They looked lost,” he summarizes with frustration.

A worker was more direct and, in a mocking tone, threw a phrase to the Madrid native that is repeated in the mouths of many: “Maduro abandoned us.” In those four words he condensed the feeling of orphanhood that spreads after the rupture of the Venezuelan supply. An earthquake in Caracas is an earthquake in Havana.

In El Cerro, Karel and Omar, two brothers dedicated to the moving business, have stopped all their operations. “We had a turn to buy gasoline last Wednesday, but they did not supply that day,” they explain. The old family truck remains motionless in the garage, while requests to move furniture and belongings accumulate without response. “With what happened in Venezuela, I don’t think it will be fixed quickly,” they say, resigned.

This early Sunday, both woke up pending their cell phones. Donald Trump has published a message on his Truth Social network urging the Cuban regime to reach “an agreement, before it is too late.” The warning was clear: “There will be no more oil or money for Cuba: zero!” For many, that message sealed the certainty that the serious fuel shortage will not be temporary.

On the Havana boardwalk, some observe the sea with that same expectation. They are looking for the silhouette of a tanker that returns some normality. For a young man who sings boleros and guarachas to tourists, the final collapse will come “when the Morro goes out.” The lighthouse, symbol and recurring joke of the exodus – “the last one to turn off the Morro” – is thus transformed into a measure of the disaster.

Maybe it doesn’t take a massive escape to see it in the dark. It is enough that the fuel does not arrive. It is enough that the wait is prolonged. Like Genaro under the tree, with an empty matchbox in his hand and the certainty that, in Cuba, even fire depends on decisions made far from home.