The Cuban regime is reportedly transferring its last reserves of oil aboard six ships operated by the military conglomerate GAESA, currently anchored in the Bay of Matanzas, according to satellite images and maritime tracking platforms.
The maneuver, of a desperate nature, occurs amidst the total loss of Venezuelan supplies following the capture of Nicolás Maduro and the collapse of the energy alliance that sustained the Havana regime for more than two decades.
The ships Sandino, Ocean Integrity, Alicia, Marlin Ammolite, Pastorita, and María Cristina remain concentrated at the supertanker dock in Matanzas, while the Primula, coming from Nipe, is heading towards the area and will become the seventh tanker to arrive.
According to Diario de Cuba, all of them are operated by companies under the control of GAESA and are commonly used for the coastal transport of fuel between Cuban ports, or as floating storage in ship-to-ship operations, a frequent practice in the so-called "ghost fleet" associated with Venezuelan exports.
The concentration of these vessels suggests that the regime may be offloading the last available fuel supplies or even relocating strategic reserves to sustain electricity generation in the coming days.
At the moment, only one foreign tanker is en route to Cuba: the Ocean Mariner, coming from Mexico, which is expected to arrive in Havana on January 8. The last shipment of Russian crude, aboard the Jasper, was unloaded in Matanzas on December 23 before heading to Santiago de Cuba.
The military intervention by the United States in Venezuela, which resulted in the capture of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, left the Cuban regime without its main supplier.
For years, Caracas sent the island between 27,000 and 35,000 barrels of oil daily in exchange for medical, teaching, and intelligence services. Without those shipments, Havana faces an imminent energy collapse.
According to researcher Jorge Piñón from the Energy Institute at the University of Texas, if Cuba had to acquire all of its oil consumption on the international market, the annual bill would exceed $3 billion. Additionally, the low quality of the available fuel would drive up prices and particularly impact diesel and fuel oil.
"The Cuban economy is exhausted, without credit and without allies," warned Bloomberg economist Emilio Morales, president of Havana Consulting Group. "The regime is draining its own tanks to buy time, but the crisis is already structural. The collapse seems to be just weeks away."
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