SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
The U.S. intervention in Venezuela's oil industry comes at a particularly rough point for Cuba. For a long time, the Cuban economy has been supported by Venezuelan oil.
JORGE PINON: Is that going to continue?
PFEIFFER: Jorge Pinon tracks Cuba's energy sector. He's a researcher at the University of Texas at Austin Energy Institute, and he warns about the possible consequences if the oil supplies are halted.
PINON: If the Venezuelans, under orders from the U.S., stop sending oil to Cuba, then you will have a second Pandora's box in the region. Not only the chaotic situation that we are already seeing in Caracas, but you will have the same situation in Havana.
PFEIFFER: Would you give us a sense of just how reliant Cuba has been on Venezuelan oil?
PINON: Not only on Venezuelan oil, we have to go back to the times that Cuba relied on oil from the former Soviet Union. It was an old barter agreement of sugar for oil. That, of course, stopped in the 1990s. And then in October of 2000, Cuba and Venezuela signed a barter agreement where Cuba would supply Venezuela with services - doctors, teachers and so on, in exchange for oil for all of its energy needs.
PFEIFFER: And even with that flow of foreign oil, Cuba frequently has lengthy energy blackouts. Why?
PINON: It's an old infrastructure. There has been very little maintenance. On top of that, they process as fuel a heavy crude oil with a high content of metals, which is extremely corrosive to the unit. They fix the unit. They put them back to work, and within the next two or three months, the unit comes down again because of the fuel that they use in this unit.
PFEIFFER: The U.S., of course, recently began blockading Venezuelan oil tankers. But the New York Times has reported that the flow of oil from Venezuela to Cuba had already been dramatically slowing down over the years. So why had that supply been slowing even before these blockades began?
PINON: Because Venezuela was running out of oil. From 2007 to about 2015, 2016, Venezuela was sending to Cuba as much as 100,000 barrels a day, which was quite a bit of oil. That trickled down to 35,000 barrels a day. Venezuelan oil production began collapsing.
PFEIFFER: The Cuban economy, though, is in distress just beyond its oil supplies. You know, for example, there's apparently a shortage of medicine to treat diseases, and I would think that that might not have a connection to oil.
PINON: It's not only the lack of electric power, it's not only the lack of fuel, it's also the lack of tourism. Tourism was a major engine in Cuba's economy. And in the last couple of years, the number of foreign tourists visiting Cuba has come down enough to have a negative impact on the overall economy. Also its export capacity. The sugar season this year has been negligible. Tobacco got hit because of the hurricanes.
PFEIFFER: I actually read an article in which you said that you wouldn't be surprised if the Americans tell Venezuela to continue giving oil to Cuba. What would be the United States' incentive to ask Venezuela to keep supplying oil to Cuba?
PINON: Again, that there will be a second regional problem that they don't want to handle right now. I mean, if the 35,000 barrels a day that historically for the last few months, Venezuela has been sending to Cuba stops, the country then really collapse because now it's not only the apagones, it's not only the blackouts, but it's also the lack of oil now to run its transportation sector, to run its industry. Sugar milling season is coming up and fuel is needed. So what's going to happen in Cuba? And Cuba is only 90 miles away from the U.S., and I think there's a lot of government official - even though the rhetoric is still the same. The rhetoric is, we want a free Cuba. We want the Cuban government to collapse. In reality, they don't want it. They can't afford it. They don't have the time. They don't have the resources.
PFEIFFER: If Cuba did collapse or its energy infrastructure collapsed, and there were ripple effects of that, what would the implications of that be for the U.S. beyond, say, a bunch of refugees heading north to Florida?
PINON: That will create a political vacuum. The church is not going to come in and handle that or fill that vacuum. We think that the Cuban military will then fill that vacuum. And then the big question that we all have - are Mexican drug cartels then going to fill that vacuum?
PFEIFFER: What about the possibility that Cuba turns to Russia or China to become its benefactor?
PINON: No, I don't think so. I think those countries also have their hands full. China is going to have its hands full with Taiwan. Russia has its hands full with Ukraine. They have their own backyards to take care of. Remember, both of those countries are far, far away. I mean, whether it's a tanker or a warship, it takes anywhere between 35 and 40 days to get from the Pacific to Cuba, versus from Cuba to Houston is three days. They'll talk about it, don't get me wrong. The rhetoric will be there. But at the end of the day, they know that this is going to be a very expensive exercise if any of them want to come into Cuba and help support the Cuban government under the conditions that they face today.
PFEIFFER: That is Jorge Pinon at the University of Texas at Austin's Energy Institute. Thank you very much. It's very interesting.
PINON: Thank you, Sacha. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
