(Bloomberg) — Cuba’s electricity grid suffered another blackout on Saturday, the second major hit to its energy system this week, amid the US administration fuel embargo and pressure on the Havana government.
Cuba’s electric system suffered a nation-wide collapse late Saturday, state-run news outlet CubaDebate reported, with work ongoing to restart power “as soon as possible.” A failure in a power unit in Nuevitas caused the outages, according to preliminary findings.
Saturday’s blackout followed Monday’s, amid an intensifying US push to deprive the Cuban government of fuel and financing. The island’s 10 million residents have been subject to chronic rolling outages for years, now under an intensified embargo led by the Trump administration.
The country’s thermoelectric power plants require about 100,000 barrels of oil a day to meet demand and domestic production accounts for just two fifths of that. The situation worsened as Venezuela’s years-long fuel lifeline was cut after the US took control over the South American country’s oil sales. A Russian fuel cargo on its way this week to the island veered away after Washington clarified that the country remains ineligible to receive Russian fuel.
Cuba authorities have responded to the US push to open its economy by allowing private companies to partner with the state in a tentative step to help bring more fuel to the country.
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