U.S. ramps up fuel exports to Cuba’s private sector: Reuters

People wait in line to refuel their cars in Havana, Cuba, Friday, Feb. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

HAVANA/HOUSTON -- U.S. suppliers have shipped approximately 30,000 barrels of fuel to Cuba’s private sector this year to date, according to documents and shipping data viewed by Reuters, suggesting a Trump administration plan to give private business a leg up over state-run enterprise is well underway.

Since January, the United States has been enforcing a de facto oil blockade against its long-time foe in a bid to starve Cuba of fuel and pressure its government into submission.

But it has made an exception for the Communist-run country’s small but vital private sector.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said authorizing those fuel exports fits with a broader Trump administration policy “entirely designed to put the private sector and individual private Cubans – not affiliated with the government, not affiliated with the military – in a privileged position.”

The volume of fuel imported since early February by the private sector - around 30,000 barrels, or approximately 1.27 million gallons (4.8 million liters) - is equivalent to just over one tenth of a typical medium-size fuel tanker’s capacity, a fraction of the country’s needs.

Cuba had until recently required some 100,000 barrels per day of imported fuel to feed its power plants and meet regular demand from vehicles and jets.

But the previously unreported figures suggest Rubio’s plan is advancing, with imported volumes growing week by week, according to the shipping documents seen by Reuters.

Container ships bring products

Since Washington captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro in January, the U.S. has blocked Venezuelan oil supplies to Cuba’s government and threatened to slap tariffs on any other country that ships fuel to the island.

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said last week the island had not received any fuel in three months. He made no reference to the private sector supplies.

Thus far in 2026, 61 container ships carrying a variety of products imported by private companies - including fuel - have discharged in Cuba, often ferrying back and forth between Cuban and U.S., European and other Caribbean ports.

Most of the ships have discharged at the port of Mariel, west of Havana, and two more are underway from Spain and Jamaica to discharge by the end of the month, with arrivals down slightly from 75 container ships in the same period last year, according to vessel tracking data from LSEG analyzed by Reuters.

According to the data, some of the Cuba-bound container ships departed this year from major energy hubs where products like coal, crude and refined products are loaded, although the lion’s share of the vessels that arrived in Cuba are categorized at origin as multi-purpose, which means they carry a variety of products.

Shipments originating in the U.S. Gulf Coast, particularly in Southwest Pass in Louisiana - a key energy corridor - are on the rise, the data also revealed, although most U.S.-originated container ships to Cuba this year departed from Florida.

The fresh flows have allowed some businesses to keep operations intact despite the crushing fuel blockade that has hit already ailing public transportation, electricity generation and tourism.

Since early February, when exports began, fuel has begun to trickle into private-sector companies initially paralyzed by the blockade, three businesspeople in Cuba told Reuters.

The list of firms importing fuel includes private breadmakers, wholesalers who distribute goods to small private markets in urban areas, and larger online shops like grocer Supermarket23, according to sources and documents viewed by Reuters.

Supermarket23 notified customers in February that it was no longer taking orders due to the fuel crunch. But it has since imported fuel, allowing it to resume its delivery services, a source with direct knowledge of its operation said.

The company did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.

No funny business

The U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security in February released guidance authorizing exports and re-exports of U.S. gas and petroleum products to eligible Cuban private-sector entities.

Cuba’s government, meanwhile, said it would allow private micro, small, and medium-sized companies, known as MIPYMES, to import the fuel to ease the energy crisis.

Private companies are implementing tight controls to assure the intent of the U.S. program is not violated, all three business sources said.

Commercial resale is not permitted - the fuel is to be used only by the importing parties, another source added.

Cuban authorities have also developed safety rules to regulate private sector storage and dispatch of the newly arrived fuel, a Cuban government source told Reuters.

The imported fuel arrives primarily in ISO tanks that are designed to hold and transport approximately 21,600 liters of fuel safely on container ships, according to the documents seen by Reuters.

Around 200 such ISO-tanks have been discharged in Cuba, the documents show. The vast majority of the imports are diesel; only 1% of the tanks contained gasoline. Most originated from the United States, the shipping data shows.

Gasoline is more flammable than diesel and requires more care during storage and dispatch, limiting its usefulness on an island with very little modern infrastructure.

Some businesses have located large white ISO-tanks of diesel onsite beside existing facilities, while others have inked agreements to rent idle infrastructure on the island to store larger quantities of fuel while strictly limiting its distribution to private sector companies only, the sources said.

The U.S. fuel exports to Cuba’s private firms come with a clear caveat.

“If we catch the private sector there playing games and diverting it to the regime or to the military company, if we find that they’re moving that stuff around in ways that violate the spirit and the scope of these permissions, those licenses will be canceled,” Rubio said in February.

(Reporting by Dave Sherwood in Havana and Marianna Parraga in Houston; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)