(Reuters) – A Russian-flagged tanker carrying some 700,000 barrels of crude docked in Cuba’s Matanzas oil terminal on Tuesday, shipping data showed, marking the first significant oil delivery to the island since President Donald Trump’s administration cut off its fuel supply.
The Anatoly Kolodkin vessel, under U.S. sanctions, entered Cuban territorial waters late on Sunday not far from the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, despite U.S. restrictions on oil supplies to Cuba, including from Russia.
The U.S. said it was allowing the tanker to deliver the crude oil for humanitarian reasons.
The Aframax tanker entered Cuba’s largest fuel storage facility under mostly clear skies and light winds, LSEG data showed.
CAUSE FOR CELEBRATION
For many Cubans, exhausted from months of blackouts, the arrival of the 250-meter tanker was cause for celebration.
“This is like finding water in the desert,” said Matanzas resident Marino Galvez, 66, who watched the ship early from the city’s waterfront boulevard.
Cuba has not received an oil tanker in three months, according to President Miguel Diaz-Canel, deepening an energy crisis that has further crippled its already dilapidated electrical grid, healthcare services, public transportation and farming.
Once fully discharged and refined, the crude should give Cuba’s Communist-run government breathing room amid growing pressure from Trump’s administration, which has promised change in Cuba.
It will take between 25 and 35 days before the oil can be fully processed and distributed domestically, according to an estimate published on social media by Cuba’s foreign ministry.
The ship is carrying Russian Urals, a medium sour crude, which is a good fit for Cuba’s aging refineries.
About 40% of the cargo is expected to be turned into fuel oil to power the island’s electricity plants, the foreign ministry said. Another 35% will be refined into diesel for power generation and transportation, 15% into gasoline, and the remaining 10% processed into cooking gas and related products.
OIL ON DECK
The U.S. stopped Venezuelan oil exports to Cuba after capturing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on January 3. Trump later threatened to slap punishing tariffs on any other country that sent crude to Cuba, and Mexico, one of its largest suppliers along with Venezuela, halted its shipments.
Asked on Monday if further Russian shipments would follow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “In the desperate situation that Cubans now find themselves in, this, of course, cannot leave us indifferent, so we will continue to work on this.”
The Trump administration said on Monday it would review further oil shipments to Cuba on a “case-by-case” basis.
Before Anatoly Kolodkin, another tanker, the Sea Horse, was carrying Russian diesel to Cuba, but rerouted to Venezuela after remaining stuck for weeks in the middle of the Atlantic.
It is unclear if the Sea Horse and other tankers that were originally bound for Cuba will try to discharge at Cuban ports after the White House softened what had been a blanket blockade.
Reporting by Ayose Naranjo in Matanzas; additional reporting by Marianna Parraga in Houston and Dave Sherwood in Havana; writing by Dave Sherwood, Editing by Aida Pelaez-Fernandez and Tomasz Janowski
