Cuba's energy and mining minister announced on Wednesday that the nation's capital, Havana, is experiencing its worst rolling blackouts in decades because to a US blockade that has starved the island of gasoline. The country has entirely run out of diesel and fuel oil.The national grid is in a "critical" situation, according to Energy Minister Vicente de la O, who stated on state-run media, "We have absolutely no fuel (oil), and absolutely no diesel." "There are no reserves.
According to the minister, blackouts have significantly increased this week and continue throughout the capital city of Havana, leaving several neighbourhoods without light for 20 to 22 hours every day. This has escalated tensions in a city already worn out by shortages of food, fuel, and medications.

He claimed that indigenous crude oil, natural gas, and renewable energy were the only sources of power for the country's grid.
Over the past two years, Cuba has built 1,300 megawatts of solar power, but according to de la O, a large portion of that capacity is lost due to system instability during fuel shortages, which lowers output and efficiency.
Cuba continued to negotiate fuel imports despite the blockade, according to the nation's top energy official, but the US-Israeli war with Iran and rising global oil and transportation prices were making the task more difficult."Cuba is open to anyone that wants to sell us fuel," the minister declared.
Since Trump's executive order in January 2026 threatening to impose tariffs on any countries shipping petroleum to the communist-run country, neither Mexico nor Venezuela—once Cuba's key oil suppliers—have provided fuel to the island.
Since December, only one major oil tanker—the Russian-flagged Anatoly Kolodkin—has brought crude oil to Cuba, offering the island some short-term respite in April.
As the US blockade on fuel supplies to Cuba enters its fourth month, public services throughout the roughly 10 million-person Caribbean island are being hampered by the recurring power outages in Havana and elsewhere.

Trump's petroleum blockade was declared illegal by the UN last week, which claimed that it had hindered the "Cuban people's right to development while undermining their rights to food, education, health, and water and sanitation."