Cuba relies on a patchwork of foreign suppliers and modest domestic production to meet its oil needs, and the balance has shifted significantly in recent years. The island consumes roughly 112,000 barrels per day but produces only about 30,500 barrels domestically, leaving a daily deficit of more than 80,000 barrels that must come from abroad. Venezuela and Mexico are the two largest external suppliers, with smaller volumes historically coming from Algeria and, at various points, Russia.
Venezuela: The Biggest Supplier
Venezuela has been Cuba’s most important oil partner for over two decades, rooted in political ties dating back to the Hugo Chávez era. The arrangement has always been partly transactional: Cuba sends thousands of doctors and other professionals to Venezuela, and in return receives crude oil and refined products at favorable terms.
How much Venezuela actually ships varies depending on who’s counting. A U.S. government analysis cited by the Miami Herald estimated that Venezuela provided Cuba with about 70,000 barrels per day of crude and refined products, worth as much as $1.3 billion, over a roughly year-long period from late 2024 through late 2025. But Jorge Piñón, a senior energy researcher at the University of Texas who tracks tanker movements, put the 2025 average closer to 30,000 barrels per day based on public shipping data. His estimate suggests Venezuelan oil fills about half of Cuba’s import gap. The discrepancy likely reflects the difficulty of tracking all shipments in real time, but either figure makes Venezuela the single largest source of imported oil for Cuba.
Venezuela’s own economic crisis has made these shipments less reliable than they once were. Through the mid-2010s, Venezuela supplied around 70% of Cuba’s total fuel imports. That share has fluctuated since, creating periods of acute energy shortage on the island.
Mexico: A Growing Role
Mexico has quietly become Cuba’s second-largest oil supplier. In 2024, Pemex’s fuel distribution arm exported 20,100 barrels per day of crude and 2,700 barrels per day of refined oil products to Cuba, totaling about $600 million. That was a notable jump from 2023, when Mexico sent 16,800 barrels per day of crude and 3,300 barrels per day of products, worth $400 million.
For Pemex, these exports are a small slice of its overall business, representing about 2.8% of total crude oil exports and under 1% of its oil product sales. For Cuba, though, the increase matters enormously. As Venezuelan shipments have become less predictable, Mexican crude has helped fill the gap. The arrangement is a commercial one, not an oil-for-doctors swap like the Venezuelan deal.
Algeria and Other Minor Suppliers
Until around 2015, Cuba’s oil imports came almost entirely from two countries: Venezuela and Algeria. Algeria’s role was structured similarly to Venezuela’s, with Cuba exchanging medical professionals for oil. After 2015, Algeria’s share began shifting. Combined imports from Algeria and Brazil rose from about 4.7% of Cuba’s total in 2013 to 13.5% by 2017, as Venezuela’s share declined from 70% to 62%. In more recent years, Algeria appears to play a smaller role as Mexico has stepped in with larger volumes.
Russia has also been involved in Cuba’s energy sector, though more through exploration agreements than consistent fuel shipments. Russia’s Rosneft and China National Petroleum Company both signed agreements in 2014 to expand production along Cuba’s northern coast.
Cuba’s Domestic Oil Production
Cuba does produce its own oil, but not nearly enough to cover demand. Current output sits around 30,500 barrels per day, down from roughly 49,000 barrels per day in 2015. Most of what Cuba extracts is heavy, high-sulfur crude found along the northern coast. This type of oil is harder to refine and produces lower-quality fuel, which limits its usefulness without significant processing.
Offshore exploration in deeper waters has largely stalled. Several international companies drilled exploratory wells in Cuba’s Gulf of Mexico waters between 2012 and 2014, but none found commercially viable quantities, and most pulled out. The focus has since shifted back onshore, where production continues at existing fields but without dramatic growth.
Refining and Storage Bottlenecks
Even when oil reaches Cuban shores, turning it into usable fuel is a challenge. The Cienfuegos refinery, the island’s largest, has a nameplate capacity of 65,000 barrels per day, enough to make a meaningful dent in domestic gasoline and diesel demand. But the facility has struggled with maintenance problems and operational delays going back years, and it has never consistently run at full capacity.
Storage is another weak point. In August 2022, a massive fire at the Matanzas Supertanker Base, Cuba’s primary oil receiving terminal, destroyed several storage tanks and killed 17 people. The disaster wiped out a significant portion of the country’s ability to receive and store incoming shipments. Chinese and Cuban specialists are now building four new tanks at the facility, which will add 200,000 cubic meters of storage capacity. The first tank holds 50,000 cubic meters on its own. The project is expected to wrap up in the first half of 2026, meaning Cuba has been operating with reduced storage for nearly four years.
These infrastructure limits compound the supply problem. Even during periods when Venezuela or Mexico ships enough crude, Cuba can struggle to unload, store, and refine it efficiently. The result is the rolling blackouts and fuel shortages that have become a recurring feature of daily life on the island, particularly since 2019. Cuba’s energy situation is less about any single supplier falling short and more about a system where every link, from imports to storage to refining, operates with almost no margin for error.