Mexico’s state-owned oil firm is throwing Cuba a much-needed lifeline because the Caribbean island struggles to maintain its energy grid operational amid its worst financial disaster because the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Petroleos Mexicanos bought 3.1 billion pesos ($166 million) of crude and gasoline to the communist-run nation within the first quarter of this yr via its subsidiary Gasolinas Bienestar, in line with a firm submitting.
The quantity of exports — 19,600 barrels a day of oil and a pair of,000 barrels a day of petroleum merchandise — marks a slight enhance from the mixed 19,900 barrels a day Pemex shipped to Cuba within the second half of 2023.
Cuba has been reeling ever since its lynchpin tourism trade was crushed by the mixture of tighter US sanctions throughout President Donald Trump’s first time period after which the Covid-19 pandemic. Rolling blackouts are fixed and the nationwide energy grid has collapsed a number of occasions over the previous yr. The dire circumstances have prompted a mass exodus that has shrunk the island’s inhabitants by virtually one-quarter over the previous 4 years.
Mexico’s vitality shipments, first reported Sunday by newspaper El Common, are a part of what President Claudia Sheinbaum’s authorities describes as humanitarian help for Cuba. The island has been subjected to broad US sanctions for greater than six many years.
The newest gross sales symbolize 3.3% of Pemex’s complete exports of crude oil and 1.9% of its petroleum product exports, in line with the June 23 submitting to the US Securities and Alternate Fee. The Mexican firm mentioned it has “procedures in place to make sure such gross sales are carried out in compliance with relevant legislation.”
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