President Claudia Sheinbaum confirmed this Monday the shipment of oil from Mexico to Cuba as part of the bilateral agreements on “energy and financial cooperation” and in “continuity of the series of supports” that have been given “historically” to the Caribbean island.
“First, we do it within a legal framework as a sovereign country, and second, we continue a series of supports that our country has historically given to Cuba,” said the president in her morning press conference after information from EFE of the delivery of 80,000 barrels of fuel from Mexico to the Caribbean island to alleviate the blackout crisis.
The head of the Executive did not give details about prices or quantities of barrels delivered from Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) to Cuba.
However, he emphasized that “everything is legal and is part of something that has been done” with the island “for a long time.”
Sheinbaum maintained that later Pemex will release the price information, as well as transportation, loading and unloading costs, but recalled that these deliveries are also made for “humanitarian reasons to the people of Cuba.”
“The Mexico-Cuba relationship is historic, Mexico was the only country that initially opposed the blockade (in the Organization of American States (OAS)), so regardless of the political party there has been a Mexico-Cuba relationship, it is not something new and everything is done within the framework of the law,” emphasized the Mexican ruler at the National Palace.
Sheinbaum presented to the media a chronology of this bilateral relationship since 1994, the year in which Mexico made an investment of 350 million dollars for the “modernization” of the Cuban Camilo Cienfuegos refinery.
Likewise, she recalled that from the mandate of former President Luis Echeverría (1970-1976) to that of former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (2018-2024) there have been official visits to the Caribbean island, although she stated that she “does not plan” to visit Cuba at this time.
Mexico sends 80 thousand barrels of fuel to Cuba to alleviate blackouts
Sheinbaum’s response comes after last week two ships from Mexico with a total of 80,000 barrels of fuel left for Cuba to help alleviate the blackout crisis on the island, according to data from the Energy Institute of the University of Texas (USA) provided to EFE.
The two ships will provide hydrocarbons at a critical time for the island, which suffers power outages of 20 or more hours a day in large areas of its territory and in the face of doubt that Venezuela, due to US military pressure, can remain its main oil supplier.
