Mexico Rushes Oil Tanker to Cuba as Island’s Energy Crisis Worsens

By Marianna Parraga and Adriana Barrera

HOUSTON/MEXICO CITY, Oct 28 (Reuters) – A tanker carrying about 400,000 barrels of oil departed from Mexico’s Pajaritos port and was on Monday en route to Cuba, where an acute energy crisis has left the island struggling to keep the lights on, shipping data showed.

Cuba kept schools closed and non-essential workers home last week as it struggled to recover from the collapse of its power grid and a hurricane in recent days.

The Cuba-flagged tanker Vilma, expected to arrive in the island later this week according to data from financial firm LSEG, has exclusively been covering Mexico-Cuba routes this year. 

Mexico has been supplying Cuba with crude and fuel since last year, complementing volumes sent by Venezuela, which is Cuba’s main oil supplier. A previous oil cargo was sent in mid-September by Mexico to a port serving Cuba’s Cienfuegos refinery, the LSEG data showed.

From January through September, Mexico provided some 20,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Olmeca crude to Cuba, which mainly arrived in Cienfuegos. In all of 2023, Mexico exported some 16,000 bpd of crude and refined products to the island, according to the data.

The Mexican cargoes, onboard the same vessels that ferry Venezuelan crude and fuel to Cuba, are supplied by a subsidiary of state-run Petroleos Mexicanos, the company told the Securities and Exchange Commission this year, adding that sales are made using peso-denominated contracts and are valued at market prices.

Pemex did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Mexico’s former President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador supported Cuba in several ways, including oil supply, while President Claudia Sheinbaum has shown willingness to maintain aid to the country. 

The passage of Hurricane Oscar has complicated the recovery of Cuba’s already precarious electricity grid. The island stabilized its electrical service last week, but warned that outages would continue.

Cuba’s outdated power plants reached crisis point this year as oil imports from Venezuela and Russia dwindled, culminating in a grid collapse this month.

Venezuela’s oil supply to Cuba fell to 32,600 bpd in the first nine months of the year from 60,000 bpd in the same period of 2023, according to vessel monitoring data.

(Reporting by Marianna Parraga in Houston; Additional reporting by Adriana Barrera in Mexico City; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise and David Holmes)

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