Cuba Has Less Than a Month Worth Of Oil Left After Mexico Cancels Shipment: 'A Major Crisis On Their Hand'

Cuba has less than a month worth of oil at current levels of demand and domestic production after a recent shipment from Mexico was halted, according to a new report.

Citing data company Kpler, the Financial Times noted that the country has oil to last 15 to 20 days unless deliveries resume. "They have a major crisis on their hands" Jorge Piñon, an oil expert at the University of Texas told the outlet.

The country has only received less than 85,000 barrels this year, according to the FT. All came from a shipment on January 9, Kpler detailed. The figure adds to an estimated 460,000 barrels held in inventories at the beginning of the year.

Cuba relied on oil from Venezuela and Mexico, but shipments from the former stopped following the capture of authoritarian President Nicolas Maduro earlier this month, and the latter is seeing an impact as well.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said this week, however, that her administration intends to continue sending oil to the country on humanitarian grounds.

U.S. lawmakers involved in regional politics had celebrated a recent report noting that Pemex halted a shipment earlier this month. However, they have gone back to criticizing the country as talk of regime change in Cuba increases following the capture of Venezuela's authoritarian President Nicolas Maduro.

In fact, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday that the Trump administration would "like to see" regime change in Cuba, noting however that such a notion "doesn't mean we're going to make a change."

The remark took place during a hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, when Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz asked Rubio to rule out U.S.-backed regime change in the country. Rubio declined, saying "we would love to see it change."

Cuba is already experiencing economic collapse. According to a recent poll, over three in four Cubans intend to flee the country. The survey was conducted by the Social Rights Observatory during the summer and reported by the Wall Street Journal as part of a broader piece about the country's crumbling economy.

The same poll showed that seven in ten respondents go at least without a meal a day and nearly 90% live in extreme poverty. Moreover, for over 70% of Cubans their main concerns are the lack of food and constant blackouts.

Some 2.7 million people have already left Cuba since 2020, a quarter of the population. Hundreds of thousands have gone to the U.S., Havana-based demographer Juan Carlos Albizu-Campos told the outlet back then.

Originally published on Latin Times