Cuba faces oil shortfall after Venezuela supply is cut

The Trump administration’s removal of Nicolás Maduro as Venezuela’s president has given the United States new leverage over Cuba and, by blocking Venezuelan shipments, cut off Cuba’s primary oil supplier, leaving the island with by most accounts less than two months of imported oil on hand.

The administration has also pressured Mexico and Russia to reduce shipments, the column says. Power blackouts are widespread, the economy is contracting and street protests have appeared despite repression. Because shippers sometimes use evasive tactics, complete and reliable data on regional oil shipments are unavailable, and the columnist says he is not confident about much of the data he has seen.

Mexico has presented some deliveries as “humanitarian aid,” supplied through Gasolinas Bienestar at state oil company Pemex; Jorge Piñon, a Cuban energy expert cited by the column, said a Liberian-flagged tanker, the Ocean Mariner, unloaded 85,000 barrels in Havana earlier this month and that Mexican shipments fell sharply in the final three months of last year after a visit to Mexico City by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

President Claudia Sheinbaum said there would be further shipments and offered to serve as a go-between between Cuba and the United States. The columnist notes historical parallels: the Soviet Union was once Cuba’s main benefactor, and when Soviet support ended in the early 1990s the Cuban economy suffered severely though the government survived.

Key Topics

World, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, Mexico, Pemex