The ‘Ocean Mariner’ sailed last Wednesday from Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, heading for Havana, where, according to the Marine Traffic website, it will arrive this Monday.
14ymedio, Mexico City, Sergio Castro Bibriesca, November 16, 2025 — This week oil shipments from Mexico to Cuba were reactivated. According to the weekly ship schedule of the Port of Coatzacoalcos, in Veracruz, the tanker Ocean Mariner loaded 10,392 tons of diesel and fuel oil and sailed last Wednesday to Havana, where, according to the Marine Traffic website, it will arrive this Monday.
The shipment would represent about 70 million barrels, according to Ramses Pech, advisor of energy and economy, who points out to 14ymedio that the cargo, about 11 million liters, could represent a cost of between 12 and 18 million dollars.
Whether it’s diesel or fuel oil, “Cuba burns much of its fossil fuel to generate electricity,” he says. The island “has great problems because of that. We have seen it the last few times with the national power outages, partly due to the fact that they have received less fuel from Venezuela. That is why Mexico started to send crude oil as well,” he adds.
“Cuba burns much of its fossil fuel to generate electricity”
The expert indicates that Mexico “must be sending Cuba fuel with a low amount of sulphur, as well as fuel oil with less than 2%, and this can help generate the power plants. It may be a conversion from diesel to fuel oil. There is not much difference.” He says that “they may even be residuals that you can also burn, or a low-quality diesel. After all, they are fuels that you can use and adapt to how you’re going to burn them.”
According to the local media Notiver, which reported from early November the presence of the tanker, the Ocean Mariner arrived on October 27 but did not enter port and stayed until October 31 in the anchorage area. Although it was reported that its departure was officially on November 12, “it stayed facing the port” and left on the 14th of November.
The Ocean Mariner, flying the flag of Liberia, “a small ship,” according to Ramses Pech, has sailed from Mexican ports to Cuba on at least four occasions since May 23, according to satellite tracking consulted by the organization Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity.
The president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, has justified the diesel exports to Cuba, saying they are due to an alleged “surplus”
The president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, has justified the diesel exports to Cuba, saying they are due to an alleged “surplus” in the country. However, experts such as Jorge Piñón, a researcher at the University of Texas at Austin, have pointed out that Mexico can send the hydrocarbon to the island because it imports diesel and gasoline from the US, to the point of being its largest buyer of refined fuels, according to official data published by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
At her daily press conferenceon October 16, the successor of former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador said that there was an elevated production of this oil derivative in the country to justify shipments to the island.
In this respect, Pech warns that “it is important that Mexico clarify how these alleged sales are made — something that Pemex has concealed and justified as a ‘private matter’– because, shortly, we will have the revision of the T-MEC (Trade Agreement between Mexico, the US and Canada) on the energy side, and that could affect Mexico in terms of the new terms and conditions that may come, which could limit shipments” to Cuba.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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