US embargo collapses Cuba's power grid for the second time in five days

Cuba's national power grid collapsed completely for the second time in five days. The government announced that the US oil embargo deepened fuel shortages and delayed the restoration of electricity.

Scraper SystemJuly 12, 2026, 02:55 PM

US embargo collapses Cuba's power grid for the second time in five days

Cuba's national power grid collapsed completely at 4:30 p.m. local time on Friday. This was the second complete blackout in the last five days.

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel described the situation as 'extremely complex' due to the US oil embargo. He stressed that the restrictions on fuel imports imposed by the embargo since January have made it difficult to operate the electrical system.

The National Electric Company (UNE) announced that electricity is being restored gradually as conditions permit. The company stated that fuel shortages have made the grid more vulnerable to failures and slowed the delivery of electricity to regions by limiting the use of backup generators running on imported diesel.

According to Cuban officials, Washington has allowed only one Russian oil tanker to transport about 100,000 tons of oil since January. This deepened the fuel crisis for power plants and backup generators.

This outage is the fourth complete blackout in the country in the last six months and the ninth since the end of 2024. It came immediately after a previous failure on Monday, which took about two days to resolve. In many areas, power cuts continue due to consumption restrictions imposed to preserve fuel stocks.

Although Cuba's theoretical electricity generation capacity is about 7,700 megawatts, actual production averages around 2,122 megawatts and can drop to 1,224 megawatts at times. This large deficit increases the risk of a total blackout.

The country remains dependent on aging Soviet-era thermoelectric plants, which frequently break down and face chronic fuel shortages. US restrictions on oil shipments have further aggravated this crisis in recent months.

US embargo collapses Cuba's power grid for the second time in five days

Cuba's national power grid collapsed completely for the second time in five days. The government announced that the US oil embargo deepened fuel shortages and delayed the restoration of electricity.