A tanker loaded with fuel of United Arab Emirates (UAE) will arrive in Havana next Tuesday, May 7, the first of its kind reported since 2021.
As shown on the ship tracking site Marine Traffic, The SYRNA, flying the flag of Sao Tome and Principe, sails from the port of Cartagena, Colombiabound for the capital of Cuba.
However, Jorge Piñón, director of the Energy Program for Latin America and the Caribbean at the University of Texas, specified that The loading of the petrochemical vessel with approximately 110,000 barrels of fuel occurred on March 15 in the United Arab Emirates.
The SYRNA arrived in Cartagena on April 25, and left just two days later for Cuba, according to the site Vessel Finder. His previous departure, whose geographical location appears blocked in that search engine, was precisely on March 15.
Does the above mean that Havana found a new regular supplier?
Piñón clarifies in this regard that “the port of origin does not mean a transaction from State to State. It was certainly a transaction of traders in favor of Cubametales, and the product was available in the Emirates.”
Havana makes this type of purchases in various marketseven in neighboring countries, such as Jamaica and the Dominican Republic.
Likewise, these types of vessels usually make brief technical stops at anchorages to hide the original origin of the fuel.
This arrival occurs while shipments from Venezuela have been reduced, those made by Mexico from 2023 are paralyzed, and no arrivals of petrochemical vessels from Russia have been reported since mid-April.
In June 2021, the Venezuelan digital newspaper As it is reported that The state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) had sent some 159,445 barrels of diesel fuel to Cuba, recently received in that country from the United Arab Emirates.
On that occasion, DIARIO DE CUBA was unable to locate the vessel through two maritime tracking platforms. The last reported location of it had been the port at the Amuay refinery, in Venezuela, on an itinerary similar to that of the SYRNA.
As it is cited a report by analyst Russ Dallen, according to which The ship El Bueno had turned off its transponder or real-time location device after leaving the Mediterranean Seaand appeared at the port of the Amuay refinery, in Venezuela, on May 23, with a load of 500,000 barrels of diesel.
“El Bueno had originally filled up in the United Arab Emirates in mid-April. She was originally named Analipsi Lady, but changed hands, names and flag statuses in rapid succession. As an oil products vessel, El Bueno was reflagged outside of Djibouti (Africa), suggests that it was being run by the Iranians, who use these types of tactics: quick change of ownership, quick change of flag and shell companies of the United Arab Emirates,” Dallen highlighted.
According to the voyage of the ship, It transited through the Suez Canal and left the Mediterranean, turning off its transponder again. shortly after crossing the Strait of Gibraltarbut reporting its destination as Lomé, Africa.
“What happens next is the most interesting, because after El Bueno leaves its precious cargo of 500,000 barrels of diesel, the Cuban ship Alicia shows up in Amuay and takes 159,445 barrels of the fuel bound for Matanzas, Cuba, as expected. PDVSA documents demonstrate,” Dallen’s report added.
The proof of the transfer was a PDVSA invoice issued by the Amuay refinery, which indicated the dispatch of 150,000 barrels destined for Matanzas and destined for the client Cubametales, owned by the Cuban military business conglomerate, GAESA.
The Alicia ended up at the Matanzas supertanker base.
The SYRNA shipment arrives in Cuba after trips and high-level visits by Cuban officials to the United Arab Emirates. Miguel Díaz-Canel attended the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP-28) in December 2023, held in that country, on an official tour that also took him to Qatar and Iran. , countries in which it tried to attract investors.
Two months before Díaz-Canel, the deputy prime minister and head of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment of Cuba, Ricardo Cabrisas, was in the United Arab Emirates. During that visit, the two parties adopted a memorandum of understanding for the reorganization of the payment of financing of 55 million dollars granted by entities of the Arab nation to Havana, “as part of actions aimed at strengthening economic and cooperation ties.” .
Last February, He was the Cuban Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero, who traveled to the Emirates to attend a business forum. The official met with Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Prime Minister, Vice President of the Emirates and Emir of Dubai.
According to the Cuban state press, both “ratified the interest in working to strengthen economic, commercial, financial and cooperation ties, and bring them to the same level of political and diplomatic relations.”
