Mexico is sending more and more oil to Cuba, the agency revealed on Wednesday Reuters with data from Eikon and TankerTrackers.com. According to both pages, the tanker Bicentennialfrom the state-owned Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex), has unloaded twice this April at a Havana refinery, which produces finished gasoline, the most recent last Sunday, when it left the port of the capital.
In addition, the ship luckyflying the Panamanian flag, has arrived on the island twice so far this year, from the Mexican port of Salina Cruz, with cargoes of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).
A Pemex source told Reuters that the state company has been supplying oil to Cuba, although he did not give details on the amount. Meanwhile, the company and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mexico did not want to comment on the request of the British agency.
According to Jorge Piñón, director of the Energy Program for Latin America and the Caribbean at the University of Texas, Venezuelan crude oil has become heavier in recent times, making it difficult for Cuba to refine and convert it into gasoline. This could be one of the reasons for the drop in shipments from the South American country, the island’s largest oil supplier since 2000.
The shipments agreed between Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro at the beginning of the century were around 55,000 barrels per month on average in exchange for professionals, doctors and intelligence personnel.
The shipments agreed between Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro at the beginning of the century were around 55,000 barrels per month on average in exchange for professionals, doctors and intelligence personnel mainly. Although in some years the agreed amount was doubled, in recent times months of increases have alternated with months of decreases in volume.
Some experts point out that Russia and Iran could be supplying Cuba with fuel paid for or exchanged by Venezuela, which would thus compensate for the flow that their refineries cannot provide to meet Havana.
Since November, according to Reuters data, at least five shipments of Russian oil and fuel have arrived from different terminals in the Caribbean and Europe.
According to the application vesselfinder, several oil tankers were anchored in Cuban ports this Wednesday. In Havana, with the Panamanian flag, are the ship Caribbean Allianceand the Cuban Glory C.and the arrival, from Curaçao –where Venezuela has one of its most important refineries– is expected, of the ship Primula, which sails under the Norwegian flag. As for the port of Matanzas, there are the oil tankers Marianna VVC heetah-II and seatrout, with the flags of Liberia, Panama and Germany, respectively. At the moment, the arrival of oil tankers to Santiago de Cuba and Cienfuegos, two of the most important ports in the country, is not expected.
The manager insisted, in an interview with the official press, to deny the rumor that Cuba exports gasoline refined on the island to obtain foreign currency
The flow, by all evidence, is not stopping. However, the fuel crisis on the Island has reached one of its most complex points. To all this, the director of Cuba Petróleo (Cupet), Néstor Pérez Franco, lamented the “limitations” of the Island regarding the importation of crude oil. The manager insisted, in an interview with the official press, to deny the rumor that Cuba exports gasoline refined on the island to earn foreign currency.
“We cannot allow things to be misrepresented, nor create more disagreements than we already have with the shortages that we all suffer, and that we are working to reduce as soon as possible,” he added.
The fuel crisis led to the suspension of the May Day parade in the Plaza de la Revolución, one of the biggest events for the regime’s propaganda. Ulises Guilarte, secretary of the Central de Trabajadores de Cuba (CTC), pointed out that it was necessary to proceed with a “reformulation” of the march, which should be carried out in the municipalities and along the Havana Malecón, under conditions of “maximum austerity”.
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