Backed Into A Corner -- Add Cuba -- August 26, 2020

Add Cuba to the list. Cash-strapped Cuba adds more power cuts. 

Cuba is deepening power cuts as US sanctions on its main fuel supplier Venezuela make it harder for the island to keep its lights on.

Venezuela's state-owned PdV has long supplied crude and fuel to Cuba under a barter agreement dating back two decades. But PdV's own production has fallen sharply and its refineries are mostly broken. One products tanker that has frequently shuttled between the two countries, the Cuba-flagged Maria Cristina also known as Carlota C, is currently berthed at the Cuban port of Cienfuegos after sailing from the Venezuelan terminal of El Palito in late July, according to ship-tracking data.

Cuba's state-owned Cupet has not answered a request for information about the status of its 65,000 b/d Cienfuegos refinery or oil import volumes.

Havana's past imports requiring cash payment have come from Russia, Iran, Algeria and Angola.

But Cuba has little hard currency to spare as foreign tourism wanes because of the Covid-19 pandemic and the US administration's blocking of cruise ships and flight restrictions.

Darn that Covid-19.

Posted earlier:

Backed into a corner:

• Kuwait lacks liquidity to cover state salaries beyond October, 2020; 
• Iraq on the verge of being unable to pay state salaries;
• at $40/bbl, oil is priced at 50% of what the Saudi budget requires (and on top of that, exports are decreasing)
• XOM booted from Dow 30; has been in the Dow 30 from the very beginning -- different names, of course, over the years