Venezuela’s state oil firm PDVSA resumed shipping exports of light crude oil to Cuba in March, according to Reuters citing internal information from the company on Monday.
Since mid-2016 PDVSA had been forced to strictly limit its exports of lighter grade crude, keeping it instead to dilute its extra heavy oil for converting to crude for export.
But in March, the data reveals, PDVSA sent 1.39m barrels of Mesa crude to Cuba in three deliveries that were unloaded at the storage facility in the port of Matanzas on the northern shore of the Caribbean island.
One theory as to why the resumption happened is that it’s a warming up for the anticipated restart of Cuba’s Cienfuegos refinery, an ageing facility that had been partially closed for maintenance. That closure led to reported shortages of gasoline in Cuba.