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Cuba Has Run Out Of Diesel And Fuel Oil Amid US Oil Blockade
Thomson Reuters | May 14, 2026 11:58 AM CST

Havana: Cuba has completely run out of diesel and fuel oil, the country's energy and mines minister said ​on Wednesday, as the capital Havana faces its worst rolling blackouts in ‌decades amid a U.S. blockade that has strangled the island of fuel.

"We have absolutely no fuel (oil), and absolutely no diesel," Energy Minister Vicente de la O said on state-run media, adding that ​the national grid was in a "critical" state. "We have no reserves."

Blackouts have increased dramatically ​this week and last across the capital Havana, with many neigbhorhoods without ⁠light for 20 to 22 hours a day, the minister said, heightening tensions ​in a city already exhausted by food, fuel and medicine shortages.

The national grid, he said, ​was operating entirely on domestic crude oil, natural gas and renewable energy.

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, de la O said, reducing efficiency and output.

The country's ​top energy official said Cuba continued negotiations to import fuel despite the blockade, but said rising global ‌oil ⁠and transportation prices amid the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran were further complicating that effort.

"Cuba is open to anyone that wants to sell us fuel," the minister said.

Neither Mexico nor Venezuela, once top suppliers of oil to Cuba, have sent fuel to the island ​since Trump's January 2026 ​executive order threatening to ⁠slap tariffs on any country shipping fuel to the communist-run nation.

Only a single large oil tanker, the Russian-flagged Anatoly Kolodkin, has ​delivered crude oil to Cuba since December, providing temporary relief to the ​island in ⁠April.

The renewed power cuts in Havana and beyond come as the U.S. blockade on fuel imports to Cuba enters its fourth month, crippling public services across the Caribbean island of ⁠nearly ​10 million people.

The United Nations last week called Trump's fuel ​blockade unlawful, saying it had obstructed the "Cuban people’s right to development while undermining their rights to food, education, ​health, and water and sanitation."


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