HAVANA/HOUSTON –
Cuba’s nationwide electrical grid shut down on Friday after one of many island’s main energy vegetation failed, Cuba’s power ministry stated, plunging the complete nation right into a blackout.
The Communist-run authorities earlier within the day closed faculties and non-essential business and despatched most state staff house in a last-ditch effort to maintain the lights on for residents.
However shortly earlier than noon, the Antonio Guiteras energy plant, the nation’s largest and best, went offline, prompting a complete grid failure and leaving roughly 10 million folks with out energy.
“There shall be no relaxation till (energy) is restored,” Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel stated on X.
The disaster had already prompted officers to cancel all non-vital authorities providers. Colleges of all ranges together with universities, have been shuttered via Sunday. Leisure and cultural actions, together with night time golf equipment, have been additionally ordered closed.
The federal government stated solely important workers of the state-run meals and healthcare industries ought to report back to work on Friday.
Grid officers stated they didn’t understand how lengthy it might take to re-establish service.
The disaster marks a brand new low on an island the place life has turn into more and more insufferable, with residents already affected by shortages of meals, gas, water and drugs.
Nearly all commerce in Havana was shut down at noon on Friday. The hum of privately-owned turbines may very well be heard in some houses and eating places, and plenty of residents sat sweating on doorsteps with home windows open because the solar broke via the clouds.
Prime Minister Manuel Marrero on Thursday blaming ongoing rolling blackouts in the course of the previous a number of weeks on an ideal storm well-known to most Cubans – deteriorating infrastructure, gas shortages and rising demand.
“The gas scarcity is the most important issue,” Marrero stated in a televised message that was garbled by technical difficulties and delayed a number of hours.
Robust wind and heavy seas that started with Hurricane Milton final week have crippled the island’s capability to ship scarce gas from boats offshore to its energy vegetation, officers stated.
Cuba’s authorities additionally has lengthy blamed the U.S. Chilly Struggle-era embargo, in addition to a recent spherical of sanctions underneath former President Donald Trump, for difficulties in buying gas and spare components to function its oil-fired vegetation.
The island’s two largest energy vegetation, Felton and the now-offline Antonio Guiteras, are each under-producing, the federal government stated, and require rapid upkeep, a part of a four-year plan to revitalize Cuba’s decrepit infrastructure.
Cuba’s fast-growing non-public companies, which have contributed to elevated demand on the island, shall be charged increased charges for the power they devour to compensate for shortfalls, Marrero stated.
Fading shipments
Whereas demand for electrical energy grows, gas provide has all however dried up on an island that produces comparatively little of its personal.
Cuba’s largest oil provider, Venezuela, has lowered shipments to the island to a mean of 32,600 barrels per day within the first 9 months of the 12 months, about half of the 60,000 bpd despatched in the identical interval of 2023, in response to vessel-monitoring knowledge and inside delivery paperwork from Venezuela’s state firm PDVSA.
PDVSA, whose refining infrastructure can also be ailing, has this 12 months tried to keep away from a brand new wave of gas shortage at house, leaving smaller volumes accessible for export to allied international locations like Cuba.
Russia and Mexico, which previously have despatched gas to Cuba, have additionally enormously lowered shipments to the island.
The shortfalls have left Cuba to fend for itself on the far costlier spot market, at a time when its authorities is close to bankrupt.
Electrical energy officers stated they nonetheless anticipate energy technology to enhance within the coming days because the climate permits gas from prior deliveries to be distributed across the Caribbean’s largest island.
(Reporting by Dave Sherwood in Havana and Marianna Parraga in Houston; Enhancing by Hugh Lawson, Invoice Berkrot and Rod Nickel)
