Madrid/With its entry into Havana this Thursday, the tanker Maria M It joins the movement of ships that are arriving these days to an island eager for oil. The ship, flying the Italian flag, loaded some 260,000 barrels of fuel – diesel, speculates director of the Energy Program for Latin America and the Caribbean at the University of Texas, Jorge Piñón – at the Sarrock refinery, in Sardinia, on May 30. , and its last stop was in the British port of Gibraltar, in southern Spain.
The freight of the Maria M was purchased, but not the one from Vilmawhich, as Piñón indicates, is waiting to load at the port of Pajaritos, in Veracruz, or the Delsacurrently unloading in Cienfuegos. Both are part of the donations to Cuba – or an exchange in exchange for doctors – that Mexico is vigorously renewing after the presidential elections of June 2, won by the candidate of the ruling party, Claudia Sheinbaum.
To these two tankers that come and go to the North American country is added the Ocean Mariner, which goes for the second round trip. Its origin, the Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) refinery in Ciudad Madero (Tamaulipas) is proof that Mexico resumed shipments to the Island not only of oil, but also of fuel.
It is not known if the Russian cargo of the ‘Marlen’ is given away or sold at a “friends’ price”
The specialist from the University of Texas also warns that “the Russians are returning,” as shown by the upcoming arrival in Matanzas of the Marlene, with 325,000 barrels of crude oil coming from the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, scheduled for July 6. It is not known if it is a cargo given away or sold at a “friends’ price”.
On the other hand, the Alicia is loading in Venezuela, indicates Piñón, who details that it is the only Cuban-flagged oil tanker documented this month in Venezuela by maritime tracking services.
Reuters reported on Tuesday that Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA is delivering most of its oil to Cuba via untraceable ships, which leave part of their cargo on the island and continue their journey to Asia – especially China – where they sell the remaining crude at the international price. The British agency suggests that part of the 70,000 barrels per day on average that left Venezuela in May for the island did not stay in Cuba. This could be the reason for the current energy instability, both in electricity generation and at gas stations.
An example would be the case of Neptune 6with the Panamanian flag, which was last week near Nipe Bay, in Holguín, transferring heavy crude oil and Venezuelan fuel oil to the ship Hopeflagged to Cuba, according to TankerTrackers.com. However, its data transmission places it north of Curacao for the past month.
This Thursday, again, the lack of electricity is expected to once again approach the thousand megawatt barrier
According to Piñón, “since the fire of the Matanzas Supertankers, in 2022, Cuba has lost a storage capacity of one million barrels and has a great challenge in managing imported crude oil, which forces it to use some of its oil tankers. cabotage as floating storage”.
The hustle and bustle of ships these weeks is another example of the chaos caused by the failures in the logistics chain of Unión Cuba Petróleo (CUPET). An expert consulted last week by 14ymedio He said that the state-owned company not only has few pipelines, but also lacks fuel to supply and move them.
All the oil seems to fall into a bottomless well, since the energy crisis does not subside. This Thursday, again, the lack of electricity is expected to once again approach the thousand megawatt (MW) barrier. The Cuban Electrical Union predicts, specifically, a deficit of 890 MW during peak demand hours, which will entail an impact of 960 MW.
As if that were not enough, the country’s largest thermal power plant (CTE), Antonio Guiteras, which two weeks ago suffered a fire in one of the two tanks of national oil that feed it, will be out of service this Friday due to “a breakdown in the boiler.” Also stopped due to breakdown or maintenance are one unit of the Mariel CTE, two in Santa Cruz and one in Felton.
