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Tanker carrying about 400,000 barrels of oil en route to

Cuba

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Tanker departed from Mexico's Pajaritos port

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Cuba struggles to recover from collapse of power grid

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Hurricane Oscar complicates electricity grid recovery

By Marianna Parraga and Adriana Barrera

HOUSTON/MEXICO CITY, Oct 28 (Reuters) - A tanker

carrying about 400,000 barrels of oil departed from Mexico's

Pajaritos port and was on Monday en route to Cuba, where an

acute energy crisis has left the island struggling to keep the

lights on, shipping data showed.

Cuba kept schools closed and non-essential workers home last

week as it struggled to recover from the collapse of its power

grid and a hurricane in recent days.

The Cuba-flagged tanker Vilma, expected to arrive in the

island later this week according to data from financial firm

LSEG, has exclusively been covering Mexico-Cuba routes this

year.

Mexico has been supplying Cuba with crude and fuel since

last year, complementing volumes sent by Venezuela, which is

Cuba's main oil supplier. A previous oil cargo was sent in

mid-September by Mexico to a port serving Cuba's Cienfuegos

refinery, the LSEG data showed.

From January through September, Mexico provided some 20,000

barrels per day (bpd) of Olmeca crude to Cuba, which mainly

arrived in Cienfuegos. In all of 2023, Mexico exported some

16,000 bpd of crude and refined products to the island,

according to the data.

The Mexican cargoes, onboard the same vessels that ferry

Venezuelan crude and fuel to Cuba, are supplied by a subsidiary

of state-run Petroleos Mexicanos, the company told the

Securities and Exchange Commission this year, adding that sales

are made using peso-denominated contracts and are valued at

market prices.

Pemex did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Mexico's former President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador

supported Cuba in several ways, including oil supply, while

President Claudia Sheinbaum has shown willingness to maintain

aid to the country.

The passage of Hurricane Oscar has complicated the recovery

of Cuba's already precarious electricity grid. The island

stabilized its electrical service last week, but warned that

outages would continue.

Cuba's outdated power plants reached crisis point this year

as oil imports from Venezuela and Russia dwindled, culminating

in a grid collapse this month.

Venezuela's oil supply to Cuba fell to 32,600 bpd in the

first nine months of the year from 60,000 bpd in the same period

of 2023, according to vessel monitoring data.