Cuba shakes hands with Russia on oil deal
CUBAN President Raul Castro and head of Russian oil company Rosneft met in Havana on Saturday, the latest sign the two countries are readying a major energy agreement.
State-controlled media yesterday ran a photograph of Castro and Igor Sechin, sitting with notebooks at a table with Economy Minister Ricardo Cabrisas, after the latter two had held what was described as “a working meeting”.
Cuba struggled with blackouts and fuel shortages after the fall of its benefactor, the Soviet Union. Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s late president, ended that crisis at the turn of the century and Cuba came to rely on Venezuela for about 70 percent of its fuel needs.
But socialist Venezuela’s subsidised shipments have fallen by at least 40 percent since 2014. Cuba is looking for new suppliers to help mitigate electricity and fuel rationing to state companies.
Rosneft, Russia’s state-run oil company, began shipping fuel to Cuba in May, even as the US under Donald Trump began reversing a fragile detente begun by former US president Barack Obama. They were the first significant Russian fuel deliveries since the early 1990s.
Rosneft said in October it was considering increasing oil shipments to Cuba and improving refining capacity on the island after Sechin met with Cuban Energy Minister Alfedo Lopez in Moscow.
Jorge Pinon, oil expert at the University of Texas at Austin, said the Cuba deal this year was around 1865000 barrels and valued at $105 million.