Mexico has been confirmed as Cuba’s second-largest oil supplier, behind only VenezuelaThis is after the tanker Velma arrived in Matanzas on Monday, carrying 390,000 barrels of medium Mexican crude oil.

According to information confirmed to DIARIO DE CUBA by Jorge Pinion, a researcher at the University of Texas Energy Institute and one of the largest experts on this subject, The ship arrived at the supertanker base on Monday morning. As usual, the official press did not talk about this arrival.

According to the data shared by Binion, Vilma, one of the oil tankers of the Cuban military business group GAESAsailing under the island’s flag, departed from the Mexican oil terminal Pajaritos on 12 September.

This is the ship’s second voyage to Cuba from Mexico in just over a month. On August 6, the ship docked in Cienfuegos, also coming from Pajaritos, according to a ship-tracking platform. Ship finder.

According to tanker monitoring conducted by Reuters in August. Last July, the ship “Velma” made two more trips from the Mexican Pajaritos terminal to Cuban refineries in Cienfuegos and Havana.respectively.

According to the Refinitiv Eikon platform, the ship previously transported Venezuelan crude oil and fuel to Cuba, but is now used more frequently for transport between Mexico and the island.

The ship Velma was in the Mexican port of Coatzacoalcos on July 15 and in Pajaritos on July 11. Between 5 and 7 July he stayed in Matanzas.

The tanker Delsa, also from GAESA, delivered Mexican crude from Pajaritos to Cienfuegos in June and then sailed to Venezuela.It loaded oil at the Jose Terminal, then moved to Santiago de Cuba on August 1.

Notwithstanding the above, The Bicentenario, owned by Mexican state oil company Pemex, has made at least four voyages from Mexico to Cuba this year.This is according to the data referred to.

the total, Mexico was going to supply Cuba with about 13,000 barrels per day of Olmeca Light crude between April and July, adding about two million barrels of oil during that period. This variety is better suited to older Cuban refineries than Venezuelan heavy oil.

According to Reuters, the Velma and Delsa (named after Raul Castro’s deceased wife and General Tite Puebla, respectively) are among the few Cuban oil tankers that have not been subject to sanctions by the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. Countries (OFAC).

In the last years, Venezuela is having difficulty producing enough fuel to meet its domestic needs, reducing what it can export. Likewise, its shipments to Cuba this year through July fell to 55,000 bpd from about 80,000 bpd shipped in 2020. In August, it closed with an increase, adding 65,000 bpd of crude oil, fuel oil, gasoline and diesel shipments. .

Mexico had only sporadically sent shipments to Cuba on humanitarian grounds until this year. This has raised doubts about it It is also possible that the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador will pay fuel costs for health workers on the island who are sent to that country.

Cuba’s fuel crisis, which has worsened since last April, has forced Havana to look for new sources of supplies, such as Brazil. For its part, Russia announced in June an agreement under which the oil company Rosneft would supply the island with 1.64 million tons of oil and its derivatives annually.

The first Russian fuel tanker left the port of Tuapse on the Black Sea in the middle of that month, heading to Matanzas.

Cuba has been receiving fuel shipments from Russia on a regular basis since last year. At the end of May, the Cameroonian-flagged supertanker Limo coming from the Eurasian country, carrying an estimated 800,000 barrels, arrived at the port of Matanzas.

despite this, In recent weeks, Cuban authorities have reported power outages due to generation deficits and, among other things, fuel shortages. To start the operation of generating sets, engines based on fuel oil, and Turkish chutes, with which they will complete the response to the national demand for electricity, which the poor thermal power plants, most of which consume heavy oil extracted in Cuba, cannot provide.