{"id":795782,"date":"2026-05-14T12:24:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T12:24:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/795782\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T12:24:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T12:24:16","slug":"cuba-has-run-out-of-diesel-and-fuel-oil-energy-minister-says-as-us-blockade-pushes-island-to-brink-cuba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/795782\/","title":{"rendered":"Cuba has run out of diesel and fuel oil, energy minister says, as US blockade pushes island to brink | Cuba"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cuba has completely run out of diesel and fuel oil, the country\u2019s energy minister said on Wednesday, as Havana faces its worst rolling blackouts in decades amid a US blockade that has strangled the island of fuel<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have absolutely no fuel (oil), and absolutely no diesel,\u201d the energy minister, Vicente de la O Levy, said on state media, adding that the national grid was in a \u201ccritical\u201d state. \u201cWe have no reserves.\u201d Fuel oil is a product derived from crude oil distillation used to generate heat or power.<\/p>\n

The minister said blackouts had increased dramatically across Havana, with many neigbhourhoods in the capital without light for up to 22 hours a day.<\/p>\n

The national grid, De la O Levy said, was operating entirely on domestic crude oil, natural gas and renewable energy.<\/p>\n

Cuba has installed 1,300 megawatts of solar power over the past two years, but much of that capacity is lost to grid instability amid the fuel shortages, he said, reducing efficiency and output.<\/p>\n

He said Cuba continued negotiations to import fuel despite the blockade, but said rising global oil and transportation prices amid the US-Israeli war with Iran were further complicating that effort.<\/p>\n

\u201cCuba is open to anyone that wants to sell us fuel,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Neither Mexico nor Venezuela, once top suppliers of oil to Cuba, has sent fuel to the island since the US president, Donald Trump\u2019s January 2026 executive order threatening to slap tariffs on any country shipping fuel to the communist-run nation.<\/p>\n

A man holds a bike with the Russian oil tanker Anatoly Kolodkin at the oil terminal in the port of Matanzas in the background. Photograph: Yamil Lage\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Only a single large oil tanker, the Russian-flagged Anatoly Kolodkin, has delivered crude oil to Cuba<\/a> since December, providing temporary relief in April.<\/p>\n

The renewed power cuts in Havana and beyond come as the US blockade on fuel imports to Cuba enters its fourth month, crippling public services across the Caribbean island<\/a> of nearly 10 million people.<\/p>\n

The UN last week called Trump\u2019s fuel blockade unlawful, saying it had obstructed the \u201cCuban people\u2019s right to development while undermining their rights to food, education, health, and water and sanitation.\u201d<\/p>\n

In March, Trump declared that he expects to have \u201cthe honour of taking Cuba\u201d<\/a>, amid US negotiations with Havana<\/a> over the country\u2019s future.<\/p>\n

The US has sought to intensify pressure on Cuba, its longtime foe, since seizing Venezuelan president Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/a> in January. Trump has since cut off Venezuelan oil shipments to Cuba and threatened to impose tariffs on any country selling oil to the country, stating that Cuba would receive \u201cno more oil or money\u201d as a result of his actions.<\/p>\n

But Trump appeared to relax his blockade<\/a> by allowing the Anatoly Kolodkin to dock and off-load its oil. \u201cIf a country wants to send some oil into Cuba right now, I have no problem, whether it\u2019s Russia or not,\u201d the US president told reporters on Air Force One, on 30 March.<\/p>\n

Critics say Trump\u2019s blockade has resulted in a deepening humanitarian crisis<\/a> on the already economically troubled island, which has forced schools and universities to shut, thrown the health care system into chaos and ravaged the tourism industry.<\/p>\n

Additional reporting by Tom Phillips and Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cuba has completely run out of diesel and fuel oil, the country\u2019s energy minister said on Wednesday, as…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":795783,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[50,103],"class_list":{"0":"post-795782","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116572918809946371","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=795782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/795783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=795782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=795782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=795782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}