Mexican fuel flows to Cuba as the island faces blackouts and the loss of Russian and Venezuelan oil

As Cuba grapples with blackouts and a deepening economic crisis, Mexico has sent nearly half a million barrels of crude oil and diesel in just a span of days, oil shipment data provided to The Associated Press showed Thursday.

It comes at a time when shipments of Russian and Venezuelan oil that long kept the island afloat have largely petered out, leaving Mexico as one of Cuba's few lifelines.

“Mexico now is key because Venezuela has dropped its supplies to Cuba, Russian oil it’s nowhere to be seen," said Jorge Piñon, senior research fellow at the University of Texas at Austin’s Energy Center, which tracks the shipments. “And so today, Mexico’s oil deliveries to Cuba are extremely important.”

Approximately 412,000 barrels of crude oil from Mexico’s state-run oil company, Pemex, arrived at the port city of Cienfuegos either early Thursday morning or late Wednesday night, according to data compiled by Piñon, who tracks shipments using oil tracking services and satellite technology. An additional 67,000 barrels of what appears to be diesel were sent Wednesday night and are set to arrive in Santiago de Cuba early next week.

The approximately $31 million in fuel comes on top of at least $300 million in fuel sent by Mexico to Cuba since the beginning of 2023, Piñon said. While such oil shipments were paused for six months at the height of campaigning for Mexico's presidential election, oil is once again flowing to Cuba under recently inaugurated Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum.

Sheinbaum on Thursday appeared to confirm the recent shipments to Cuba, but said they were just a small fraction of the 1.6 million to 1.8 million barrels of oil Mexico produces in a day.

“We are going to support Cuba,” Sheinbaum said at her morning news briefing. “Even if they criticize it, we are going to show solidarity.”

Cuban authorities did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the oil shipments.

The shipment comes at a dire moment in Cuba, where large-scale blackouts left 10 million people — already reeling from a deepening economic crisis — without power for days earlier this month.

Cuba's government has faced simmering frustrations and rare protests after it sharply hiked gas prices, further squeezing the pocketbooks of Cubans, who struggle to pay for the most basic food items, like eggs and chicken. The Cuban government blames the U.S. economic embargo for its woes, but Cuba's power grid has been left in disrepair and the government has long failed to invest in alternative energies like solar power, despite a plethora of sunshine.

As a result, Cuba's main source of power has been fossil fuels. It long depended on its regional ally Venezuela until aid disappeared as the oil-rich nation fell into crisis. In recent years, Cuba leaned on Russia, which was sending hundreds of millions of dollars in fuel just two years ago. That helped to alleviate a massive shortfall in Cuba’s supplies while simultaneously helping to ease the weight of international sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.

But much of that support has dried up despite Russian promises to send more aid. A 119,000-barrel shipment of Russian fuel in September was the first seen in months, said Piñon.

Cuban Minister of Energy and Mines Vicente de la O Levy said in late October that the island is “in talks” with Russia, Venezuela and leftist ally Colombia, “which are in constant communication with us and are asking us to tell them how they can support us.”

Still, De la O Levy said Thursday in a post on X that the government would only have half of what was needed to keep the lights on during peak hours.

While Mexico, a longtime ally of Cuba and fierce critic of U.S. economic sanctions, has pledged to continue to help the island, it remains unclear if the oil being offered is a gift or is being sold at a reduced price.

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Associated Press Caribbean News Director Cristiana Mesquita contributed to this report from Havana, Cuba.