Within Cuba’s oil industry, there are exploratory wells and development wells. Photo: Cupet.

By Francisco Acevedo

HAVANA TIMES – The blockade Cuba is currently facing on fuel imports has the dictatorship experimenting with every possible avenue in search of some breathing room, and one of them is trying to use the Island’s own oil, traditionally too heavy to be used in the country’s aging thermoelectric power plants.

For some, extreme financial strangulation is only the most visible aspect of current US policy toward Cuba, but with the US embroiled in a war with Iran, any other use of force is apparently off the table.

For the first time, the regime truly knows what a blockade is, because for decades it found lifelines in the Socialist Bloc, China, Venezuela, Iran itself, or Russia, and now nobody wants to get on board, among other reasons because payments are not being made and debts keep piling up.

With great fanfare, the official newspaper Granma published an article a few days ago about the tests being conducted on domestic crude oil, particularly at the Hermanos Díaz Oil Refinery in the eastern province of Santiago de Cuba.

According to the article, the third experimental run was a “decisive step” toward replacing imports and optimizing the country’s energy resources.

The results yielded encouraging figures, reported the newspaper. Not only improving on those of the two previous tests (in March and May) but also introducing key technological adjustments for handling this high-density crude, with its high acidity and significant sulfur content.

This is just one more experiment, of which we have long since lost count among the scores inventions of the Fidel era and those that came afterward, from moringa, as a food substitute, to the “monetary reordering” (the 2021 economic reforms), this time involving an oil that for decades was shown to be useful only for producing associated gas.

Now the specialists in Santiago want to convince us that they can protect the integrity of the processing lines, heat exchangers, and pumping systems, which are subjected to extreme conditions because of the crude’s composition.

A never-ending learning process

However, they themselves acknowledge that they are still in the learning process, and that little phrase is enough to make the hair stand on end for any reasonably sane Cuban because, let’s be frank, we are more than accustomed to paying dearly for our leaders’ latest brainstorms, those grand revelations that always arrive… when the ship is already about to sink or, worse yet, when they are already selling us the life preserver at the price of a gold bar.

The first thing that comes to mind is that oh-so-“revolutionary” concept of learning as you go, as though we were in driving school and the instructor told you: “Don’t worry, you’ll learn as you drive full speed down the highway without a seat belt.”

And well, of course, who wouldn’t want that? Learning while the country falls apart, people struggle desperately to survive, and the history books continue to be written in invisible ink.

But the funniest—or most tragic, depending on how you look at it—part is that these gentlemen want to reinvent the wheel. They bring us the magical solution of inventing what has already been invented.

Yes, because it turns out that after decades of trying to make something out of the nearly useless oil we have, we now realize that the gold mine wasn’t a mine at all, but rather a puddle of watery oil. So they decide that the best thing to do is keep going around and around with the same idea until something comes of it, because learning will get you far!

Never admitting mistakes

The irony is that this attitude of “learning” never includes admitting past mistakes. No sir, those are kept safely tucked away in a locked drawer, behind the curtain and under seven locks. But every time they propose a new plan, they trot out the fashionable phrase: “We’re still in the learning process,” as though repeating it would give us fewer blackouts or magically bring inflation down.

And while they learn, we poor Cuban mortals continue to be the guinea pigs in this grand experiment.

An experiment where the formula seems to be: pour more gasoline into the engine and see if it starts but try not to set fire to the little car where we’re sitting uncomfortably in the back seat without seat belts.

We remain trapped in a loop where the solutions are as original as reheated coffee, victims of a story with more seasons than a Turkish soap opera, and by now you don’t even know what to expect.

Meanwhile, our reality is embellished with stories as outlandish as the one reported this week about links between Castro royalty and Latin American mafias.

The prestigious New York Times and the US Department of Justice dropped a bombshell this week: Raul Guillermo Rodriguez Castro, alias “El Cangrejo” (The Crab) and Raul Castro’s favorite grandson, was directly implicated by a leader of the ruthless “Cuban Mafia of Quintana Roo”, in Mexico.

According to those sources, the arrangement was for this small-time character with a grandiose name to receive high-performance speedboats, Rolex watches, and Louis Vuitton luxury goods in exchange for using his power as security chief for the behind the scenes tyrant to keep the Cuban Coast Guard out of the way and facilitate human trafficking and smuggling.

It is a very serious accusation, since this criminal network is considered responsible for extortion, robberies, and the deaths of dozens of Cuban rafters at sea.

With the country in ruins and the puppet Diaz-Canel calling for resistance, the little grandson profits from the suffering of his compatriots, operating like a mafia boss.

The US Treasury Department, through its Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), has a long list of members of the ruling elite under financial sanctions, but this crab always manages to keep moving forward without any obstacle getting in his way.

I’d like to know whether he would be willing to lend his yachts to test the domestic crude, just out of curiosity.

It would be a fantastic way to add some nuance to the experiment: if the yacht holds up without sinking or exploding, then we have a crude oil worthy of export. After all, who needs sophisticated chemical analyses when you have a luxury yacht as a testing ground? And if the engine seizes up, well, that’s just a minor inconvenience, one more adventure in the national oil odyssey.

So, amid laughter and sarcasm, you could say that this revolutionary method would turn our crown prince’s yachts into true ambassadors for Cuban crude. Just keep an eye on the next regatta, which could turn into a race… to stay afloat.

Read more from Cuba here on Havana Times.