US to allow Russian oil tanker to reach Cuba, breaking blockade

MEXICO CITY – The US Coast Guard is allowing a Russian tanker full of crude oil to reach Cuba, delivering a critical supply of energy to the island nation after months of an effective oil blockade by the Trump administration, according to a US official briefed on the matter.

The tanker, which is carrying an estimated 730,000 barrels of oil and is owned by the Russian government, was less than 24km from Cuban territorial waters on the afternoon of March 29, according to MarineTraffic, a ship-data provider.

At its speed of 12 knots, the ship was expected to enter Cuban waters by the evening of March 29. The tanker could reach its expected destination of Matanzas, Cuba, by March 31.

The Russian ship’s arrival would shift the trajectory of a rapidly accelerating crisis in Cuba, buying the island nation at least a few weeks before its fuel reserves run out, analysts said.

It would also reduce pressure on a Cuban government facing a looming economic collapse and escalating threats from Washington, and show that, at least for now, the island can still depend on its longtime ally, Russia.

The Trump administration had been enforcing what amounted to an oil blockade around Cuba since January, threatening nations that had been sending fuel to the country and, in one case, escorting a tanker heading toward Cuba away from the island.

The Coast Guard has two cutters in the region that could have attempted to intercept the Russian tanker. Yet the Trump administration did not order those vessels to act, according to a US official briefed on the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss operations.

Barring orders instructing it otherwise, the Coast Guard planned to let the tanker reach Cuba as of the afternoon of March 29, the official said.

It was unclear why the White House did not issue orders to block the tanker or whether it would allow future Russian oil shipments to reach the island. The decision avoids a potential thorny confrontation with Russia just off the coast of Florida.

The Coast Guard referred questions to the White House, which did not respond to a request for comment. Russian and Cuban officials also did not respond.

The US oil blockade has been choking Cuba, leading to daily blackouts, severe gas shortages, soaring prices and deteriorating medical care.

The policy has attracted international criticism, including from the United Nations, that the United States is causing a humanitarian crisis in Cuba. At the same time, White House officials have been threatening the Cuban government publicly, while pushing it privately to remove its president, Mr Miguel Diaz-Canel.

President Donald Trump said this month that he believed he will “be having the honor of taking Cuba” and suggested that he could target the island with military force after the Iran war.

“I built this great military,” he said at an investment conference on March 27. “I said, ‘You’ll never have to use it.’ ​But sometimes you have to use it. And Cuba is ​next, by the way.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on March 27 that the White House wanted new leaders in Cuba. “Cuba’s economy needs to change, and their economy cannot change unless their system of government changes,” he told reporters.

Cuban officials have dug in, saying the nation is prepared to defend itself.

“Our military is always prepared and, in fact, it is preparing these days for the possibility of military aggression,” Cuba’s deputy foreign minister, Mr Carlos Fernandez de Cossio, said on NBC’s Meet the Press last week.

“We would be naive if, looking at what’s happening around the world, we would not do that. But we truly hope that it doesn’t occur.”

The oil tanker now nearing Cuba may change the shape of tensions between the countries. Cuba was quickly running out of energy supplies, relying on solar power, domestic oil production and small fuel shipments to private Cuban businesses to prop up a failing energy grid. The crisis had led to small protests – a rarity in Cuba – and was raising questions of how the government would survive.

But the Russian oil will ease that crisis, at least temporarily. The oil can be refined into various products, including diesel, petrol, jet fuel and fuel oil, which is used to power many Cuban power plants. That should help stabilise the energy grid, reduce blackouts, improve transportation and aid agricultural production, said Mr Jorge Pinon, a former oil executive who studies Cuba’s energy system at the University of Texas.

“It buys them time,” Mr Pinon said. “But this is not a magic wand that all of a sudden, by the arrival of this tanker, all of their problems are solved.”

Mr Pinon said that the oil would take about three weeks to refine into other products and then another week to be distributed around the country.

Diesel he said, is the most critical product for Cuba, as it powers trucks, tractors and many power plants, and is in desperately short supply on the island. Some humanitarian aid has been trapped at warehouses because trucks do not have diesel to distribute it, farms have been paralysed with powerless tractors and some power plants have been shut down because of a lack of fuel.

Cuba has kept the lights on – albeit inconsistently – because 40 per cent of its energy grid is supported by power plants that largely run on crude oil that Cuba produces domestically. Cuba has also been racing to install solar panels to prop up the grid. But Mr Pinon said that 40 per cent of the grid depends on smaller power plants that use diesel.

He estimated that Cuba could use up the Russian oil in less than a month. But he expected the government to preserve some energy supplies for its strategic reserves and security forces.

“This is going to give diesel to the police, to the military units, to basically the whole apparatus of the Cuban government,” he said. NYTIMES