Resolution 155/2026

Cuba's Ministry of Finance and Prices raised the retail price of a 10kg bottled cooking gas cylinder 64 per cent, from 213 to 350 CUP, under Resolution 155/2026, effective 16 July 2026 and reaching 1,707,763 contracted GLP customers. State media attributed the increase to the intensifying US blockade rather than to the government's own supply arrangements.

The decree lands three days after the largest single-day wave of new US sanctions on Cuban entities under Executive Order 14404, but the underlying fuel shortage predates that designation round. Energy Minister Vicente de la O Levy confirmed on 13 May 2026 that Venezuelan crude supply had been interrupted since November 2025, well before the 13 July sanctions wave, leaving Cuba producing roughly 40,000 barrels a day domestically against demand of 90,000 to 110,000 barrels. Beyond that confirmed November 2025 supply cut, this run could not independently verify further import-side detail behind the price rise: MINREX and Cubadebate were unreachable throughout the week, so the precise weighting between blockade effects and pre-existing supply failure is not established in the record.

Resolution 155/2026 is the first cost-of-living decree of the current sanctions wave to land on ordinary households rather than state institutions, following a run of EO 14404 designations aimed at ministries, security services and state enterprises. Arriving three days after the 13 July ten-entity sanctions batch and amid successive July grid collapses, it sharpens the underlying question for readers of how much of Cuba's fuel and energy crisis traces to the tightening blockade versus supply arrangements that were already failing well before the latest sanctions round.