Cuba has “absolutely no fuel oil and absolutely no diesel”, according to the country’s Energy Minister, Vicente de la O Levy.

His comments, made to state-run media on Wednesday, underline the severity of Cuba’s energy crisis, which has been intensified by a near-total U.S. blockade on fuel imports since January. 

The effects of the fuel shortages were felt immediately, with widespread power outages on Wednesday night sparking protests in Havana. Though the protests soon dissipated, large sections of eastern Cuba remained in darkness on Thursday. 

While Cuba has domestic reserves of natural gas and crude oil, it lacks the money to maintain or upgrade its refineries, which are necessary to convert high-viscosity crude oil into fuel oil, essential to electricity generation. 

“Cuba is open to anyone that wants to sell us fuel”, Levy implored.

However, Cuba has largely been cut off from international oil imports by the U.S., which threatened to impose tariffs on any country supplying oil to Cuba and severed Venezuelan oil supplies to the Cuban state.

Despite this, Russia sent an oil tanker to help alleviate the crisis in March and China has also helped Cuba mitigate its reliance on imported fuel by helping install solar parks across the island. 

Nevertheless, it is unclear if any country would be willing to provide Cuba with enough oil to sustain its national grid indefinitely. There is also no guarantee that the U.S. would allow new foreign oil imports to arrive. 

The U.S. is reportedly considering sending the island a humanitarian aid package worth US$100 million to ease the effect of its own oil blockade of the island, with CIA Director John Ratcliffe visiting Havana yesterday to discuss “intelligence cooperation, economic stability, and security issues”. 

Ratcliffe is likely the first CIA Director to visit the island since 1953, as the U.S. and Cuba have been staunch geopolitical adversaries since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959. 

Although the two nations are involved in official diplomatic negotiations, tensions between Washington and Havana have been rising dramatically. The North American superpower has repeatedly threatened the Cuban leadership with political regime change and has ratcheted up punitive sanctions against officials and economic entities deemed to be linked to the Cuban regime. 

Although the U.S. claims its measures are solely targeted at the Cuban government, the punitive measures have contributed to an economic and humanitarian crisis that is harming many ordinary Cubans, with hospitals, schools and workplaces facing shortened operating hours because of power cuts. 

Critics of the Cuban regime, however, argue that the energy shortages and the humanitarian suffering in the Caribbean nation are a result of the political leadership’s authoritarianism, economic mismanagement and corruption.

Featured Image: An oil refinery near Regla, Cuba 

Image Credit: Marcel601 via Wikimedia Commons

License: Creative Commons Licenses

The post Cuban energy minister announces country has run out of fuel oil and diesel  appeared first on Latin America Reports.

Cuba has “absolutely no fuel oil and absolutely no diesel”, according to the country’s Energy Minister, Vicente de la O Levy.

His comments, made to state-run media on Wednesday, underline the severity of Cuba’s energy crisis, which has been intensified by a near-total U.S. blockade on fuel imports since January. 

The effects of the fuel shortages were felt immediately, with widespread power outages on Wednesday night sparking protests in Havana. Though the protests soon dissipated, large sections of eastern Cuba remained in darkness on Thursday. 

While Cuba has domestic reserves of natural gas and crude oil, it lacks the money to maintain or upgrade its refineries, which are necessary to convert high-viscosity crude oil into fuel oil, essential to electricity generation. 

“Cuba is open to anyone that wants to sell us fuel”, Levy implored.

However, Cuba has largely been cut off from international oil imports by the U.S., which threatened to impose tariffs on any country supplying oil to Cuba and severed Venezuelan oil supplies to the Cuban state.

Despite this, Russia sent an oil tanker to help alleviate the crisis in March and China has also helped Cuba mitigate its reliance on imported fuel by helping install solar parks across the island. 

Nevertheless, it is unclear if any country would be willing to provide Cuba with enough oil to sustain its national grid indefinitely. There is also no guarantee that the U.S. would allow new foreign oil imports to arrive. 

The U.S. is reportedly considering sending the island a humanitarian aid package worth US$100 million to ease the effect of its own oil blockade of the island, with CIA Director John Ratcliffe visiting Havana yesterday to discuss “intelligence cooperation, economic stability, and security issues”. 

Ratcliffe is likely the first CIA Director to visit the island since 1953, as the U.S. and Cuba have been staunch geopolitical adversaries since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959. 

Although the two nations are involved in official diplomatic negotiations, tensions between Washington and Havana have been rising dramatically. The North American superpower has repeatedly threatened the Cuban leadership with political regime change and has ratcheted up punitive sanctions against officials and economic entities deemed to be linked to the Cuban regime. 

Although the U.S. claims its measures are solely targeted at the Cuban government, the punitive measures have contributed to an economic and humanitarian crisis that is harming many ordinary Cubans, with hospitals, schools and workplaces facing shortened operating hours because of power cuts. 

Critics of the Cuban regime, however, argue that the energy shortages and the humanitarian suffering in the Caribbean nation are a result of the political leadership’s authoritarianism, economic mismanagement and corruption.

Featured Image: An oil refinery near Regla, Cuba 

Image Credit: Marcel601 via Wikimedia Commons

License: Creative Commons Licenses

The post Cuban energy minister announces country has run out of fuel oil and diesel  appeared first on Latin America Reports.

U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters on Monday that he believes that “Cuba sees the end” and, as such, he will have “the honor of taking Cuba”. 

The American leader was likely referring to an “end” of Cuba’s current communist system, which has historically been at odds with the U.S. 

“I mean, whether I free it, take it. Think I can do anything I want with it. You want to know the truth”, the president added. 

Trump’s comments coincided with a total collapse of the Cuban electrical grid on Monday which left millions without power. The U.S. blockade of foreign oil supplies — which has meant that no oil shipment has reached Cuba in three months — to the island has left Cubans facing chronic electricity shortages and frequent power outages. 

The Cuban national energy provider — La Unión Eléctrica de Cuba — posted on X that it had restored power to several “micro systems” in the provinces and that power was gradually being restored municipality by municipality. 

Read More: Crippling blackouts leave millions in darkness in crisis-ridden Cuba

Responding to Trump’s predictions of Cuba’s imminent collapse, the Cuban Consul General in Italy José Luis Darias Suarez told Latin America Reports that he was unaware of Trump’s latest comments, but that “in 67 years of revolution, a United States president has never been able to do what [he] wants with Cuba.” 

“On the contrary, they have implemented different measures, especially measures of economic pressure, to topple the Cuban Revolution, a revolution that remains in power because of [the] popular support … of the people who stand with the revolution, of which there are indisputably many”.

However, the current economic crisis has contributed to a growth in political opposition to the Cuban government. Protests, once a rarity in Cuba, have gradually increased in intensity and scope. 

In the central city of Morón demonstrators even ransacked a local office of the ruling Cuban Communist Party (PCC) in a sign of growing discontent towards the island’s leadership. 

Trump’s warnings to Cuba contrast the conciliatory tone struck by Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel last Friday, who revealed that the Cuban and American governments were engaged in official negotiations that sought to find “a potential solution to … bilateral differences” between the two traditional adversaries.  

However, those negotiations may require Cuba to make comprehensive political changes in exchange for the United States easing its economic sanctions against the island; the New York Times and The Miami Herald report that the U.S. government sees removing Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel from power as a key element of any future negotiation. 

The New York Times revealed that, if Cuba complied, the U.S. would then likely allow Cubans to choose their next leader, as opposed to having a U.S.-backed figure installed. 

However, Trump’s most recent comments imply that a negotiated solution remains anything but guaranteed. The Trump administration’s actions in Venezuela to capture President Nicolás Maduro and their killing of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei serve as a reminder that the U.S. is willing to use force to remove heads of state, such as Miguel Díaz-Canel, that it perceives to be hostile. 

Featured Image: Trump with military officers at MacDill Air Force Base in 2017. 

Image Credit: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff via Wikimedia Commons

License: Creative Commons Licenses

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