Madrid/Energy uncertainty continues in Cuba after Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum refused to answer clearly about the future of Pemex shipments. The president had to answer questions from the press, very interested in the matter after Bloomberg published this Monday that the state oil company suspended a load of oil to the island.
“As we have said, it is a sovereign decision and Pemex makes its decisions. And also as we have said, Mexico’s decision to sell or give oil to Cuba for humanitarian reasons, since it also has to do with a sovereign decision that has been coming for many years, is not recent,” Sheinbaum said in his usual morning press conference. He was asked about the cancellation of the trip Swift Galaxywhich was supposed to arrive on the island these days, but disappeared from the calendar, according to the American media.
The ‘Swift Galaxy’, flying the Panama flag, was anchored for one hundred days in the Mexican port of Pajaritos, until December 10
Cuban expert from the University of Texas Jorge Piñón is struck by the strange route of that tanker and its large size (more than 700,000 barrels), much larger than the vessels that Pemex usually uses for its shipments to Cuba. The Swift Galaxy, flying the flag of Panama – it was called Parthenon when it began sailing in 2003 under the Greek flag and adopted its current name in March 2025 – was anchored for one hundred days in the Mexican port of Pajaritos, until December 10, the date on which it set sail for Jamaica, then Colombia, before crossing the Atlantic to Gibraltar and, finally, changing its route with a new destination much further north: Denmark, where it is expected on December 4. February, according to Vessel Finder.
Sheinbaum did not shed much light on the matter, even though he was asked directly. “Is this issue refuted that the shipment of oil was suspended or is about to be suspended?” a reporter told him. “It is a sovereign decision and it is made when necessary,” he insisted. The president, however, denounced the US blockade on Venezuelan crude oil being brought to the Island, which “has generated a shortage problem,” she said.
“Mexico has always been supportive and Mexico will continue to be supportive. So, the decision of when it is sent, how it is sent, is a sovereign decision and is in terms of what Pemex defines, depending on the contracts or in any case the Government of a humanitarian decision to send in certain circumstances,” he concluded.
This Tuesday speculation continued in the country. Some analysts maintain that shipments are being stopped for fear of retaliation from the United States – although its Secretary of Energy stated that they were not going to ask Mexico for such a measure – while others believe that it could simply have been due to supply problems and a third group believes that, if the explanation were technical, it would have been made known.
This Tuesday, the Ticket system indicated the resupply of eight of the 24 gas stations in the eastern sector of Havana
The last oil tanker that arrived in Cuba from Mexico was the Ocean Marineron January 9 with 86,000 barrels of crude oil, which the Ñico López refinery in Havana is currently processing to supply fuel to the capital’s service centers. This Tuesday, the Ticket system indicated the replenishment of eight of the 24 gas stations in the eastern sector of Havana, all of them closed just the day before. Meanwhile, in the western zone only 6 of the 14 service centers were dispatching.
In the last year, according to the Mexican media Political AnimalMexico sent oil worth 556 million dollars to Cuba, although it is still unknown how or who paid, and whether it was a barter or a donation – the latter, the only thing denied by Pemex.
According to the Bank of Mexico (Banxico), during the 31-year period from January 1993 to September 2024, oil worth 841.9 million dollars was exported to Cuba, while just 13 months of the Sheinbaum Administration (October 2024 to November 2025) the Island received Mexican crude oil worth more than 1.1 billion dollars.
