Havana/A large column of black smoke could be seen from numerous points in Havana this Friday, rising beyond the capital’s bay, around the Ñico López refinery, in the municipality of Regla. The fire occurred in the afternoon and images immediately began to proliferate on social networks.
The official journalist Lázaro Manuel Alonso confirmed the news on his networks, indicating that he was heading to the place, although minutes later he stated: “controlled fire”. He also confirmed it 14ymedio. Less than an hour after the first videos were published by different users, tranquility prevailed in Regla.
At the entrance to the refinery, fuel tankers and trucks entered with apparent normality, although firefighters could still be seen moving around on motorcycles.
“No deaths or injuries were reported”
The Ministry of Energy and Mines assured that “the causes are being investigated.” For his part, the director of the refinery, Maikel David Cabrera Estrada, later specified that the incident occurred in a warehouse that contained “an obsolete additive product” and that it did not spread to other areas, so the flames did not reach the fuel tanks. He also assured that “no deaths or injuries were reported.”
Ñico López is one of the three refineries in Cuba. It is an old facility that was nationalized in 1960 and has the capacity to process both heavy national crude oil and imported oil. However, it has technical problems due to its age and lack of resources for its maintenance.
Last March, two refinery workers They were prosecuted for spilling 280,000 liters of regular gasoline when they unloaded from the ship to the storage tanks. According to official media reports, the employees were subjected to a criminal trial in the Popular Municipal Court of Diez de Octubre for the “crime of failure to comply with the duty to preserve assets in State economic entities.”
The incident recalled the disastrous precedent that destroyed, in August 2022, the Matanzas Supertanker Base
This Friday’s fire occurs in the middle of an unprecedented energy crisis, worsened since the United States intervention in Caracas last January, which resulted in the capture of Nicolás Maduro and the imposition of a Government under the supervision of Delcy Rodríguez. Washington not only cut off shipments of Venezuelan crude oil to the Island, but also threatened countries that supplied oil with tariffs, as was the case with Mexico.
The incident recalled the disastrous precedent that destroyed, in August 2022, the Matanzas Supertanker Base, the main fuel storage infrastructure, and claimed the lives of 17 people, several of them young people undergoing mandatory military service in the fire department. The fire damaged half of the facility – four tanks out of eight – with a capacity of 50,000 cubic meters each and, although it had announced its prompt reconstruction, this has not yet taken place.
