President Claudia Sheinbaum has declared that Mexico will provide fuel to Cuba for "humanitarian reasons" amidst the severe power outages affecting the Cuban population. "We are going to support Cuba, we are already supporting them. It will be 400,000 barrels of oil," she stated, adding that this quantity is a small fraction of Mexico's daily production, which ranges between 1.6 and 1.8 million barrels.
Mexico's Stance Against the U.S. Embargo
Sheinbaum reiterated Mexico's solidarity with the island, emphasizing that the aid is given for "humanitarian reasons" and reaffirming Mexico's opposition to the U.S. embargo: "We believe, and this is not new, that it impacts the Cuban people," she asserted.
Worsening Power Crisis in Cuba
The electrical crisis in Cuba has led to widespread blackouts in recent weeks, with forecasts predicting alarming outages for this Friday. The state-owned Unión Eléctrica (UNE) of Cuba anticipates that more than half the country will be affected at night, with an impact of 1,550 MW.
This marks one of the highest levels of power cuts this year, surpassing the 51% outage recorded before the energy collapse that left the country without electricity for three days two weeks ago. The blackouts are a result of fuel shortages and frequent breakdowns in the thermoelectric plants, which suffer from chronic investment deficits and have been operational for over four decades.
Previous Technical Support from Mexico
Mexico had previously offered technical assistance to the island through the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE). Last year, in the face of potential sanctions or withdrawal of a substantial loan by the United States, the state-owned Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) denied that the oil supply to Cuba in 2023, which amounted to $200 million according to the University of Texas Energy Institute, was a donation.