The Cuban authorities keep the few oil reserves to support the nighttime power deficit
14ymedio, Havana, 24 September 2024 — “For the first time in a long time the landscape is not stained with the smoke of the patanas. Now things have become critical,” exclaimed a resident of Nuevo Vedado on Tuesday. Until about 7 in the morning, the smoke from the three floating power plants in Havana Bay was visible from the 14ymedio newsroom, but not even an hour had passed when the sky began to clear.
The explanation was offered by the Unión Eléctrica de Cuba (UNE) in its first morning newscast: the generation will stop during the day to be able to use all the capacity at night, since there is no fuel.
“The National Load Dispatch Center estimates that by noon there will be a loss of 750 megawatts (MW), because the floating and distributed generation plants are being preserved to operate at night and early morning,” says the communication, which also begins with a devastating sentence: “High demand and lack of imported fuel are causing high deficits in generation capacity.”
Late on Thursday, the Cuban Government was able to pay for and unload one of the four oil tankers that were waiting in the ports of the Island, but the Minister of Energy and Mines had already warned: “In Cuba, 3,000 tons of hydrocarbons are consumed daily. A 20,000-ton boatload lasts for a week. Two or three b
