The seizure of a Venezuelan oil tanker by UNITED STATES this week could further worsen the situation of Cubawhich is already struggling to obtain enough oil to supply its weakened economy and power grid.
The Communist Party-led nation, a neighbor and former enemy of the United States, is suffering daily power outages that last for hours, decimating productivity and testing the patience of its exhausted residents.
Cuba relies on crude oil and petroleum products from Venezuela — transported to the island by small ships and a clandestine fleet of sanctioned tankers — for much of its consumption, according to maritime industry data and analysts.
This supply chain could be seriously disrupted if the seizure of a single tanker this week turns into a series of interceptions, accompanied by additional sanctions.
Washington, which imposed new sanctions on Thursday against six ships sailing to Venezuela, plans to intercept more tankers carrying Venezuelan oil in the coming weeks, sources familiar with the matter said this week.
Between January and November, Venezuela sent 27,000 barrels per day of crude oil and fuel to Cuba, up from 32,000 barrels per day last year, according to shipping data and internal documents from state oil company PDVSA.
That covers about 50 percent of Cuba’s oil deficit, or about a quarter of total demand, according to Jorge Pinon, who studies Cuban energy infrastructure at the University of Texas at Austin.
Without Venezuela’s contribution, Cuba’s oil imports, which have also been affected by reduced supplies from Mexico this year, would fall, he said, leaving Cuba in a critical situation.
“Now that Mexico is sending less oil and Russian supplies in large quantities have not materialized, I see no other alternatives,” Pinon said. “Times are tough and they’re going to get worse.”
The Cuban and Venezuelan governments as well as the national company Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) did not respond to requests for comment on this report.
The U.S. move, amid growing pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, is putting many shipowners, operators and shipping agencies on alert, with many reconsidering whether or not to leave Venezuela in the coming days as planned, sources told Reuters.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel joined Venezuela on Wednesday evening in condemning the US seizure of the tanker.
“This constitutes an act of piracy, a violation of international law and an escalation of aggression against this brother country,” Díaz-Canel told Channel X.
Cuba has worked for decades to circumvent the Cold War-era U.S. trade embargo and associated financial restrictions that hamper its fuel purchases on the global market.
The vessel seized this week, the Skipper, transferred a small portion of its cargo of Venezuelan oil near Curacao to another tanker bound for Cuba, according to satellite images analyzed by TankerTrackers.com.
This fits a trend that began earlier this year, in which third-party supertankers loading oil under shared charter contracts out of Venezuelan ports, make a brief stopover in the Caribbean to transfer part of the cargo to another vessel bound for Cuba, then head to China to deliver the rest of the oil, according to shipping data and documents.
The terms between Venezuela and Cuba regarding these cargoes remain unclear. As part of a long-standing collaboration, Cuba provides security and intelligence services to Maduro.
Some cargoes of Russian naphtha have also been shared this year between Cuba and Venezuela, with tankers delivering batches to the countries on an alternating basis to optimize use of the available fleet.
Cuba also announced an effort to speed up the construction of solar farms, although authorities have warned that aging oil-fired thermal plants will still need fuel.
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