Venezuela sent 52 thousand barrels of oil per day to Cuba in October

The Venezuelan government sent its Cuban ally 52,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd) during October, amid one of the worst declines in its exports in the last year.

The state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) sent to Cuba some 52,000 bpd of crude oil, fuel oil, diesel and jet fuel, to meet the “internal demand for fuels amid increased consumption and insufficient imports after a large-scale fire that damaged its main oil terminal in August," the agency reportedReuters.

In the month just ended, PDVSA and its joint ventures exported a total of only 533,968 barrels per day (bpd) in 25 shipments, a decrease of 25% compared to September and the fourth lowest average during 2022.

According to the source, the majority of shipments shipped in October went to Asian destinations, mainly Malaysia and China, through intermediaries; while another part of the exports went to Iran.

However, amid a lack of sustained investment, power outages, and a shrinking group of partners “willing to continue operating in the U.S.-sanctioned South American nation,” exports to the Caribbean country increased.

Cuba needs Venezuelan fuel shipments to cover more than half of its demand, which before the coronavirus pandemic reached 137 thousand bpd of fuel oil, diesel, gasoline and other refined products, according to the National Statistics Office of Cuba.

In October of this year, the country received 14 thousand bpd from its political allyless than what was received that same month in 2021; but a figure higher than that of September 2022, when the crude oil allocation decreased to 36,000 bpd, which represented less than half of August (81,200 bpd), the media indicated.EuroNews.

In a context of serious effects on transportation andelectrical servicewhich the government justifies with the fuel shortage, Venezuela - whose shipments go back several years - and other countries have continued to send fuel after the fire at the Matanzas Supertanker Base.

In September,a ship with 700 thousand barrels of oil crude oil from the Urals in Russia arrived in Cuba; another similar one had arrived in July loaded with the same amount of Russian fuel oil for supply the Cuban thermoelectric plants.

Followed by a seven-month pause, in April PDVSAresumed its fuel shipments to Cuba. On that occasion, according to several sources, the company was preparing a shipment of at least 190 thousand barrels of diesel.

After the devastating fire in the industrial zone of Matanzas, Maduro instructed the Minister of Petroleum, Tareck El Aissami, and the president of PDVSA, Asdrúbal Chávez, to support the immediate reconstruction of the base.