“In no other country in the world is energy information given daily to the people,” said Cuba’s Minister of Energy and Mines
14ymedio, Havana, 5 October 2024 — “No Russian ship with fuel is arriving in the country.” With that categorical statement, Cuba’s Minister of Energy and Mines, Vicente de la O Levy, denied this Friday that the PVT Clara tanker, coming from the port of Kaliningrad, had docked in Havana. The statement is surprising, since the ship – as indicated by maritime tracking applications – arrived on the Island on October 2, and this Saturday, now leaving, it had just passed through Cuban territorial waters.
The official press waited for the ship to leave Havana Bay to publish a special “podcast” on the energy situation, because – they pointed out – the “concerns of the population” have increased. The PVT Clara, which sails under the flag of Panama, set sail from Russia on September 14 and arrived on the Island last Wednesday. Its capacity is 20,831 tons.
In his speech, the minister assured that he is aware of “everything that is published and the comments” on social networks and in “national and official media.” “We even argue,” he added. “There are many comments that sometimes we can answer, and there are others that are very sensitive; we delay because we have to do a good analysis. Let’s remember that we have an enemy,” he said.
De la O Levy spent several minutes criticizing the “enemy” that “analyzes word for word” all the official statements to “provoke the population.” “They make that kind of insinuation to wait for an answer,” he said, clarifying that he would not say anything unless it was a question from an “official” media. “And always analyzing what can be said,” he warned, knowing that the Social Communication Law, in force since this week, obliges leaders to offer the information requested by the official press.
“The Electric Energy System is a strategic issue, both for electricity and fuel, and that’s why it is very sensitive,” the official continued. He explained that he spends a lot of time reading “the opinions, the comments, the things that are written – the vast majority very correct and with concerns, some with suggestions, others looking to see what the future will be like.”
The daily report that the Electric Union offers on Cuban Television, said the minister, reports “what happened and what is going to happen, that is “its goal.” “It is a program of moments of crisis,” he admitted, praising his own initiative, because “in no other country in the world is energy information given daily to the people.”
“The situation is so tense that anything that happens during the day now varies the prognosis”]
But the program does not satisfy Cubans either, the minister complained, because “many people” think that the announced electricity deficit does not correspond to the severity that is experienced day to day. “It’s just a forecast,” he justified. “The situation is so tense that anything that happens during the day now varies the prognosis.”
Next, he listed the factors that can fail: from a component of a thermoelectric plant to the patanas – the recent fire in one of them caused the death of two Turkish workers in Havana. Everything depends on “the ships, railways, road transport of fuel, lubricants, spare parts and almost all the organizations involved in the country’s economy.”
But De la O Levy went further: “When you don’t have fuel reserves, any small detail counts: a ship that is delayed or a swell that prevents the docking of a ship causes fuel unavailability. That happens to us very often because we don’t have back-ups for our tanks. That’s why deviations from the morning forecast occur with respect to what really happens.”
Cuba is experiencing one of the many peaks of the energy crisis so far this year. The same day that the PVT Clara arrived in Cuba, the Reuters agency revealed the collapse of oil shipments from Venezuela, Havana’s main energy partner. Caracas sent 22,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd) to Cuba in September, a considerable drop compared to 33,700 bpd in June, the last month recorded.
This is a long way from the 56,000 barrels per day that Venezuela sent in 2023, thanks to the agreement signed in 2000 by Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro. To compensate for this reduction, but without reaching the levels necessary to remain stable, the Island has increasingly resorted to the help of Russia and Mexico. The result: long blackouts that, for months, have not given the Cuban people respite.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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