The multinational has suspended its activities in Moa due to the lack of fuel, while Beijing, the leading buyer of the mineral, invests in modernizing the industry
14ymedio, Havana, April 12, 2026 – The Cuban energy crisis has opened a gap in one of the country’s most sensitive industries, and China is moving to fill it. While the Canadian company Sherritt has suspended operations in Moa due to fuel shortages, the Cuban government is showcasing the arrival of Chinese technology at the Comandante Ernesto Che Guevara plant as a sign of continuity in a sector that has been operating at the limit for years. What is at stake is not just a specific investment, but a rebalancing of external influence in the exploitation and commercialization of Cuban nickel.
The official press reported this week on the installation of a Chinese-made sedimentation tank in the leaching and washing area of the Moa plant, in Holguín, framing it within a technological modernization program. It did not report how much the equipment cost, who manufactured it, under what conditions it was acquired, or how much it will increase process efficiency. In Cuba, strategic industrial investments are often announced as political gestures rather than as projects subject to public scrutiny.
The new development stands out because it comes at the most delicate moment for Sherritt in years. In February 2026, the Canadian company reported that it had reduced or halted activities in Moa due to fuel restrictions and warned that a prolonged shutdown makes any restart more expensive and complicated. Sherritt maintains its stake in the joint venture Moa Nickel S.A., but the operational crisis has reduced its visible presence on the ground and exposed the fragility of a model overly dependent on imports, subsidized energy, and logistical stability.
In 2024, China was the main destination for Cuban exports of “nickel mattes” and other intermediate nickel products, with 53.1 million dollars
In that context, China appears less and less like a distant partner and increasingly like the practical support Havana needs to sustain the industry. This is not, at least for now, a formal corporate replacement of Sherritt. It is something more gradual and perhaps more important. Beijing gains influence where the Canadian company loses room to maneuver, especially as a buyer of the mineral, supplier of equipment, and actor willing to sustain a strategic relationship with an industry that Cuba cannot allow to collapse.
China has long occupied a central place in this framework. In 2018, Cuba aimed to produce more than 50,000 tons annually of combined nickel and cobalt. Production from the Ernesto Che Guevara plant was exported mainly to China, while that of Pedro Soto Alba, operated in association with the Canadian company Sherritt, was sent to Canada. China was, at least for a significant portion of Cuban nickel, the main destination market.
The most recent trade data from the Observatory of Economic Complexity reinforce this trend. In 2024, China was the main destination for Cuban exports of “nickel mattes” [intermediate sulfide products] and other intermediate nickel products, with 53.1 million dollars, ahead of the Netherlands, with 35.4 million. The figure confirms that the link with Beijing can no longer be described as complementary. In a key part of the business, China is now the most important buyer.
The relationship between the two countries in this sector, however, did not begin now. The most ambitious precedent dates back to 2004, when Cuba and China signed 16 cooperation agreements that included a promise of investment exceeding 500 million dollars to complete a ferronickel plant abandoned in the eastern part of the country. According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), that package also included the supply of 4,000 tons of nickel annually to China between 2005 and 2009, and the creation of a joint venture to explore and develop mineral deposits. As has happened so many times in the Cuban economy, the gap between announcement and outcome was considerable. It was later acknowledged that the Camarioca project ended up leaving the orbit of China Minmetals.
Sherritt has not disappeared from the map, but the combination of energy crisis, production paralysis, and external dependence has weakened its immediate prominence
In statements to 14ymedio, businessman William Pitt has linked the deterioration of Sherritt in Cuba both to the collapse of the international price of nickel and to the growing financial burden of its operations on the Island. In April 2024, he warned that a metric ton of nickel was trading at 17,439 dollars, well below the 23,894 dollars of a year earlier, and argued that this drop was forcing mining companies to cut investments in Cuba. A year later, commenting on the company’s annual report, he noted that although in 2024 Sherritt extracted 30,331 tons of nickel and 2,206 of cobalt, its revenues fell to 109.9 million dollars, 29% less than in 2023.
In May 2025, moreover, the company recorded a loss of 40.6 million dollars in the first quarter, while its nickel production fell from 3,597 to 2,947 tons, its nickel sales declined from 87.8 to 75.7 million dollars, and the Cuban State kept frozen the payment of some 107 million dollars it owed the Canadian company. For Pitt, behind those losses there is not only a bad price cycle, but a combination of blackouts, fuel shortages, falling global demand, lack of personnel, and the general deterioration of the Cuban state partner.
Sherritt has not disappeared from the map, but the combination of energy crisis, production paralysis, and external dependence has weakened its immediate prominence. China, on the other hand, is strengthening its position through a less visible and more effective route. It buys, supplies equipment, sustains cooperation, and places itself at the center of an industry that the Cuban government needs to preserve in order to obtain foreign currency. According to the USGS, mineral products accounted for nearly a third of Cuban exports in 2023, a proportion too high to allow nickel to collapse without external support.
The installation of the sedimentation tank does not by itself rescue the industry nor does it amount to a major wave of investment. But it does function as a symptom. At the moment when the Canadian company slows down and the Cuban State cannot sustain the comprehensive modernization of the sector with its own resources, China occupies the available space.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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