Havana/There is no peace for the Ticket application, now mandatory use if you want to buy some of the little gasoline that remains in Cuba. After two days of chaos due to technical problems, when it began to show signs of life this Monday, the rest of the scenario was revealed. Getting a shift is already a feat, but getting the fuel is more than a miracle.
Just take a look at the network of service centers in Villa Clara, a province that has approximately 42 gas stations and that currently only has four in operation with a tiny number of shifts available. This Monday, the Cimex corporation, which manages the service centers and depends on the military conglomerate Gaesa, reported 75 shifts in Capiro for each of the types of gasoline on sale (B90 or regular, at $1.10; and B94 or special, at 1.30), while in Sagua and Maleza there were only 25 shifts for regular. Finally, in Máximo Gómez, there were 50 more shifts (25 of each type), all in Santa Clara.
About 30 kilometers away, already in Camajuaní, there were another 50 shifts (25 of each gasoline). And nothing more. “Remember that the limit of fuel to be purchased is up to 20 liters each time you register on the platform and the customer will have 24 hours to consume their shift once notified. To the extent that fuel availability conditions allow, their free marketing will be gradually restored,” said Cimex.
“The Servicentro Garaita is totally devastated after the guidance that only ticket sales will be made”
The situation is slightly better this Tuesday in Matanzas, which has 13 service centers open out of the 40 in the province. The luckiest are the residents in the capital, Varadero, Cárdenas, Colón and Jagüey Grande, with two gas stations in each, although in this case it is not known how many shifts will be available.
“The Servicentro Garaita is completely devastated after the guidance that only sales will be made by Ticket,” a Holguín resident tells this newspaper. After two days of frustration trying to access the application, this Monday he finally managed to access it, but could only find appointments for the sale of B90 and B83 or motor gasoline, a type of fuel that is barely used in Cuba, beyond old almendrones or agricultural machinery, whose price is $0.95.
The system has not found friends anywhere. This same Tuesday, Cubadebate publish a letter from a reader that talks about the sale of shifts as if it were The Hunger Games. “It is impossible for the majority to enter the Ticket platform, and those of us who have managed to enter and reach a number below 200 have not received the message to be able to access the fuel,” he reproaches. “Yes, we have been writing down CUP for years. It is the same suffering but with the currency that we do not charge,” a user tells Cimex on social networks.
The real problem is, obviously, the absolute absence of fuel. In the last month, since January 9th arrived Ocean Mariner coming from Mexicono oil tanker has docked in Cuba and a month has passed without receiving crude oil from abroad, a situation that according to Bloomberghad not lived on the Island since 2015.
This Tuesday, the only ship moving in Cuban waters is the tanker Hopewhich is part of the Cuban coastal shipping fleet and is bringing oil to the Cienfuegos refinery. This is a part of the crude oil that has been transferred from the Sandinoa Cuban tanker with a capacity of about 400,000 barrels in which the country’s last reserves are stored.
“Yesterday I went to the service center and it was bare: no gasoline, no people. And on the black market a liter of gasoline reached 2,000 pesos,” says a man from Sancti Spiritus, tired of blackouts that last more than 12 hours without electricity. On social networks it is even sold, privately, of course, at 2,500 pesos per liter in Havana. “Where are we going to end up?” asks an indignant user. But there is also another comment. “How do I contact him?”
