Cuba was plunged into a national blackout on Friday after one of the island’s main power plants failed, causing the collapse of the national power gridits Energy Ministry said.
The communist government had already closed schools and non-essential industries and sent most civil servants home in a last-ditch effort to keep the lights on during severe power outages, reports said. Reuters.
But shortly before noon, the Antonio Guiteras Power Plantthe country’s largest and most efficient, was knocked out of service, causing a complete grid outage and leaving around 10 million people without power. Authorities did not say what caused the plant to fail.
“There will be no rest until (power) is restored,” Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said on the social network X.
Authorities said by mid-afternoon that they had begun taking steps to restore power, but that the process would take time.
“We are restoring the electricity system: the state of each of the thermoelectric plants, the availability of fuel and the network situation are being examined. Distributed generation is used for the creation of microsystems in the territories,” he said. -he declared. noted. the Ministry at X after 3 p.m. (local time).
Only essential services
The power outage marks a new low on an island where life has become increasingly unbearable, with residents already suffering shortages of food, fuel, water and medicine.
Power outages had already led authorities to cancel all non-vital government services on Friday. Educational centers, including universities, have been ordered to remain closed until Sunday. It was also ordered closure of recreational and cultural activitiesincluding nightclubs.
No fuel
Prime Minister Manuel Marrero on Thursday evening attributed the worsening power outages in recent weeks to a perfect storm familiar to most Cubans: deteriorating infrastructure, fuel shortages and growing demand.
“Fuel shortages are the biggest factor,” Marrero said in a televised address to the nation.
High winds that began with Hurricane Milton last week have crippled the island’s ability to move scarce fuel from offshore ships to its power plants, officials said.
The Cuban government also blames the U.S. trade embargo, as well as new sanctions imposed by former President Donald Trump, for difficulties in acquiring fuel and spare parts to operate its oil plants.
“The complex scenario is mainly due to the intensification of the economic war and the financial and energy persecution of the United States,” Díaz-Canel said on X on Thursday.
“The United States is not responsible for the current power outage on the island, nor for the general energy situation in Cuba,” said a spokesperson for the White House National Security Council.
Oil, key
As demand for electricity has grown alongside Cuba’s private sector, fuel reserves have evaporated.
Cuba’s largest oil supplier, Venezuela, cut its shipments to the island to an average of 32,600 barrels per day in the first nine months of the year, about half of the 60,000 bpd shipped during the same period in 2023, according to ship monitoring data and internal shipping documents from Venezuelan state corporation PDVSA.
PDVSA, whose refining infrastructure is also struggling, has tried this year to avoid a new wave of fuel shortages in the country, leaving fewer volumes available for export to allied countries like Cuba.
Russia and Mexico, which have already sent fuel to Cuba, have also significantly reduced shipments to the island.
The shortage has forced Cuba to fend for itself in a much more expensive cash market, at a time when its government is on the verge of bankruptcy.
