President Claudia Sheinbaum stated that Mexico will provide fuel to Cuba "for humanitarian reasons" in response to the crisis of power outages facing the Cuban population.
“We will support Cuba; we are already doing so. It will be 400,000 barrels of oil,” stated the president, adding that this amount represents a minimal fraction of Mexico's daily production, which ranges between 1.6 and 1.8 million barrels.
Sheinbaum reiterated Mexico's solidarity with the island, clarifying that the support is given for "humanitarian reasons" while reaffirming Mexico's stance against the U.S. embargo: "We believe that, and this is historically not a recent issue, it affects the Cuban people," she asserted.
The electricity crisis in Cuba has led to widespread blackouts in recent weeks, with forecasts predicting alarming levels of outages for this Friday.
Cuba's state-owned Unión Eléctrica (UNE) anticipates that more than half of the country will be affected tonight, with an impact of 1,550 MW.
This will be one of the highest levels of power outages of the year, surpassing the 51% recorded before the energy collapse that left the country without electricity for three days on the Friday of the week before last.
Power outages are the result of fuel shortages and frequent breakdowns in thermal power plants, which have faced a chronic investment deficit and have been in operation for over four decades.
Mexico had already offered technical assistance to the island through the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE).
Last year, in the face of threats of sanctions or the withdrawal of a multimillion-dollar loan from the United States, the state-owned company Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) denied that the supply of oil to Cuba in 2023, which amounted to 200 million dollars according to the University of Texas Energy Institute, was a donation.
What do you think?
COMMENTFiled under:
