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Cuba Dispatch
7MAY

Diaz-Canel admits Russian oil running out

3 min read
12:16UTC

On 4 May Miguel Diaz-Canel told reporters the Kolodkin's 730,000-barrel cargo was depleting and Cuba had no certainty about the next shipment.

← Back to Family sanctions land as the grid relapsesJump to analysis ↓
PoliticsDeveloping
Key takeaway

The president put on his own record what UNE bulletins had implied: the Kolodkin cushion is gone.

President Miguel Díaz-Canel said publicly on Monday 4 May 2026 that the Russian crude delivered by the Anatoly Kolodkin on 31 March is "already running out these days" and that Cuba has "no certainty about the arrival of another shipment" 1. The statement is the first presidential acknowledgement of the fuel gap, made one day before the Antonio Guiteras plant tripped on 5 May.

The Kolodkin's 730,000-barrel delivery had powered the late-April window of restored grid stability in Havana . At Cuba's roughly 60,000-barrel-per-day baseline crude consumption, that cargo bought ten to twelve days of margin. The cushion has now been burnt, and the next Russian vessel positioned for Cuba is the Sovcomflot Universal, which Bloomberg locates 1,000 nautical miles offshore on 5 May at a pace that cannot reach port before its GL 134B licence expires.

The admission breaks an information pattern. Earlier crude tightness had been signalled through UNE bulletin language and indirect minister statements; the 4 May admission came from the president on the record. The 10 April back-channel between State Department officials and Havana , and the GL 134B extension issued on 18 April have not produced a confirmed second tanker. The combination of those two facts means Havana is signalling, in public, that the Russian-Cuban supply chain is at the edge of what Sovcomflot can move under sanctions cover.

The diplomatic reading runs alongside the operational one. A presidential admission of fuel shortage is unusual in Cuban political grammar; it is normally absorbed into ministry-level language about "complex moments." Díaz-Canel's choice to put the words on his own record raises domestic expectation pressure on Moscow at exactly the moment Washington's 1 May sanctions order tightens the personal architecture around officials and their families.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Cuba has to import almost all its oil, it does not produce enough to run its power stations, vehicles, and industry. The most recent delivery came from a Russian ship called the Anatoly Kolodkin in March. That fuel lasted about five to six weeks before running out. On 4 May, Cuba's president said publicly that the Russian oil was almost gone and that Cuba had no confirmed next delivery. This is unusual: Cuban leaders do not normally admit supply problems so directly. It signals that the situation on the ground, widespread blackouts visible to millions of people, has made managing the news impossible.

Deep Analysis
Root Causes

Cuba imports approximately 60,000-70,000 barrels per day of fuel, almost entirely from Venezuela and Russia. Venezuelan supply was curtailed after EO 14380 excluded GAESA from the PDVSA licence framework on 25 March 2026. Russia became the sole remaining state-level supplier.

A single tanker delivery of 730,000 barrels covers approximately 10-12 days of national consumption, which aligns precisely with the four blackout-free days achieved in Havana during the Kolodkin burn and the subsequent relapse.

Cuba holds no strategic fuel reserve beyond the Matanzas terminal storage, which covers a few weeks of consumption at most. With no second tanker confirmed and the Universal deterred from declaring its Cuban destination, Cuba's grid is operating on a consumption curve rather than a storage buffer.

What could happen next?
  • Risk

    With the Kolodkin fuel exhausted and no confirmed replacement, Cuba's grid deficit will worsen unless Russia dispatches a second vessel before the Universal's GL 134B licence expires on 16 May.

  • Consequence

    A presidential fuel-gap admission creates a domestic credibility problem for Díaz-Canel: any further deterioration in conditions will now be measured against his own public acknowledgement of the supply failure.

Sources:Periódico Cubano
Mentions:Havana →Universal →Antonio Guiteras →Bloomberg →Washington →Cubadebate →UNE →Miguel Díaz-Canel →Anatoly Kolodkin →Periódico Cubano →Russia →Moscow →Sovcomflot →Cuba →General License 134B →
First Reported In

Update #3 · Family sanctions land as the grid relapses

Periódico Cubano· 7 May 2026
Read original →
Causes and effects
This Event
Diaz-Canel admits Russian oil running out
First on-record presidential acknowledgement that the Russian crude cushion has run out, with no positioned replacement.
Led to
Guiteras fails again, deficit hits 1,680 MW
Díaz-Canel's 4 May admission that Kolodkin crude was running out directly preceded and explains the Guiteras shutdown context — no fuel cushion to sustain grid recovery.
Occurred 5 May 2026
Read story →
Peso slides to 540; MLC spikes to 420
Díaz-Canel's admission of no confirmed replacement crude adds to economic uncertainty that feeds continued informal peso depreciation.
Occurred 4 May 2026
Read story →
Different Perspectives
Florida Cuban-American congressional delegation (Gimenez, Diaz-Balart, Salazar)
Florida Cuban-American congressional delegation (Gimenez, Diaz-Balart, Salazar)
The three Florida House Republicans demanded OFAC revoke all Cuba licences on 11 February; Treasury has not responded at 85 days. Their silence after the 51-47 Senate vote signals dissatisfaction with the executive's pace, but the delegation has not broken publicly with the administration's two-track direction.
Vatican / Holy See channel
Vatican / Holy See channel
The Holy See channel mediated the 2015 Obama-Castro normalisation but has not been publicly credited or disavowed in the 10 April back-channel contacts. The lapsed 24 April dissident-release deadline with no Vatican statement suggests the channel has not produced a mediating intervention in this cycle.
US Senate war-powers cohort (Kaine, Schiff, Gallego)
US Senate war-powers cohort (Kaine, Schiff, Gallego)
The three Democrats who introduced S.J.Res.124 on 25 April lost the 51-47 discharge vote two days later; Collins and Paul crossing on institutionalist and libertarian grounds locate a small but identifiable bloc to build on for any renewed motion. Democrats would need to flip two more Republicans or recover Fetterman's vote.
WOLA and engagement-leaning US policy community
WOLA and engagement-leaning US policy community
WOLA has assessed that the 1 May family-designation framework is structurally novel but may have limited enforcement bite against Cuba's nomenklatura, which holds wealth predominantly in peso-denominated state positions with limited offshore exposure. CEPR has tracked the informal USD/CUP rate as a real-time signal of fuel supply risk and MLC availability simultaneously.
OCDH and Prisoners Defenders
OCDH and Prisoners Defenders
OCDH's April report logged 366 repressive actions against 277 in March, with active prison deterioration during the announced indulgence. Prisoners Defenders' political-prisoner count reached 1,250, the highest in its history, while Amnesty International confirmed zero prisoners of conscience released in any 2026 pardon wave.
Russian government / Sovcomflot
Russian government / Sovcomflot
Sovcomflot dispatched the Kolodkin in March and positioned the Universal as the follow-on, but Bloomberg's AIS reporting shows the Universal drifting 1,000 nautical miles from Cuba since 14 April at 2-3 knots with no declared destination. Whether the stall reflects a commercial decision or Moscow testing US deterrence before GL 134B expires is not determinable from public data.