The Cuban government announced that international flights would no longer be able to refuel there because of aviation fuel shortages, after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to impose tariffs on any country that sells oil to the island.
Cuba’s leadership said Sunday that the country will run out of aviation fuel starting Monday, which could disrupt airlines operating there, according to two sources cited by the Spanish wire service EFE.
All of Cuba’s international airports are expected to be affected by the jet fuel shortage, which could last about a month.
Since the Trump administration’s January 3 military operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, a longtime supporter of Cuba’s government, it has sought to strengthen the US position on Cuba.
In a late January executive order, Trump described the Cuban regime as posing “an unusual and extraordinary threat,” saying that declaration of a national emergency was necessary.”
According to the president, human rights abuses, communist rule and Cuba’s ties to countries such as China, Russia and Iran contribute to regional instability “through migration and violence.”
Trump said during the announcement that the US could impose tariffs on nations that directly or indirectly provide Cuba with oil.
Cuba meets about one third of its energy demand with domestic production, according to the source. For the remainder, it depends on imports, primarily from Mexico and, to a lesser degree, Russia, with Venezuela accounting for around 30 percent of total supplies in 2025.
This week, the Cuban government unveiled a strict emergency plan that includes closing some hotels, cutting back hours at public offices and hospitals and banning the sale of diesel in an effort to subsist without imported crude oil and its derivatives.
I wonder how much of this will draw Cuba into a more green approach. Not out of any moral necessity, but purely out of actual necessity. Oil is hard to ship; but if any green technology from China or even their own indigenous designs can make it then I suspect they’ll be alright.
China cannot ship in solar panels to Cuba fast enough.
Cuba is already pursuing a number of green alternatives for powering civilian infrastructure, however jet fuel is one of those irreplaceable few fossil fuels that the nation is struggling to secure reserves of. If I remember correctly, Cuba considered domestic refining of jet fuel but the process was prohibitively expensive without an economy of scale and the planners couldn’t justify the expenditure.
It wont let me post my edited photo of Kirov Airships with the Cuban flag dangling over them.
Yeah, that’s a tough one. I do wonder what the solution to that is.
The immediate solution? Probably pay Russia to send some tankers with warship protection. The long-term solution is to work with Russia to build out a massive domestic oil industry.
Alternatively, if China provides enough assistance, they could use green electricity to turn CO2 and water directly into jet fuel, like this company: https://prometheusfuels.com/
https://interestingengineering.com/energy/solar-powered-method-converts-co2-into-fuel
The main issue with the renewable jet fuel idea is that the design inherently requires CO2 derived from ethanol production as Cuba doesn’t have nearly enough heavy industry to facilitate relying solely on direct capture. That reliance on ethanol would make Cuba even more reliant on the US as the nation already imports a substantial amount of corn from Argentina, Brazil, and the US already for animal feed and flour refining.
It’s actually much cooler than that. The end goal of that tech is to get all the needed CO2 directly from air via DAC (direct air capture).
When we burn gasoline, we release CO2 and water. The DAC and fuel plant can capture the CO2 and water, use chemistry to reverse the combustion, and output gasoline. I work in this field as my day job.
The main issue with this is that it’s still early stages.
That’s so cool! Hopefully that works out!