I do find it funny that all of the leftists in Central and South America suggest that the US should put the fire out.
Oh, my mistake.
That was the State Dept and the WH press corpse.
The fire at the Matanzas Supertanker Base has killed at least one person and injured 125 others, with another 14 firefighters still missing. It also forced officials to evacuate more than 4,900 people and shut down a key thermoelectric plant on Monday after it ran out of water, sparking concerns about additional blackouts.
The eight-tank facility plays a crucial role in Cuba’s electric system: it operates an extensive oil pipeline that receives Cuban crude oil that is then ferried to thermoelectric plants that produce electricity. It also serves as the unloading and transshipment center for imported crude oil, fuel oil and diesel.
The facility caught on fire late Friday after lightning struck one of its tanks, sparking several explosions as it spread over the weekend. The first tank was at 50% capacity and contained nearly 883,000 cubic feet (25,000 cubic meters) of fuel. The second tank was full.
Tell ‘em to call the good ‘ol boys in Venezuela .
Not to worry. Biden will send them the oil from our strategic reserve. They can keep the ship too as we have nothing else to ship and nowhere to send it.
When I was a lad there was a big oil fire in Signal Hill, California. At night we could see the explosions of the oil tanks, huge flames reaching into the sky. Went on at least for a couple of days.
It seems like a metaphor in addition to a climate-threatening catastrophe.
All we need is some St. Greta Thunberg scowling “How dare you!!”
The Communist-run and heavily U.S. sanctioned country is all but bankrupt and blackouts and shortages of gasoline and other commodities already had created a tense situation with scattered local protests following last summer’s historic unrest in July.
At noon on Monday, authorities announced the country’s most important power plant, located less than a mile from the fire, had been shut down due to low water pressure in the area.
The power grid depends more than 90% on local and imported fuel. Jorge Pinon, director of the University of Texas at Austin’s Latin America and Caribbean Energy and Environment said the fire threatened both.
“The key questions now are where Cuban crude oil production will go to generate fuel for electrical use as it is only connected by pipeline to Matanzas,” Pinon said, adding the facility has an installed capacity of 2.4 million barrels.
A tanker carrying Russian crude to Matanzas, identified by Refinitiv Eikon monitoring service, is unlikely to be able to discharge next week even if docks are not affected by the fire, because of possible damage to tanks, pipelines and valves, analysts said.
Since Matanzas is the only terminal with capacity to receive large vessels, Pinon said, the tanker might be forced to transfer its cargo via ship-to-ship operations so the crude can be refined at the Cienfuegos or Havana refineries, “but it is not clear Cuba has the capacity to do that”.
Residents expressed fear that the crisis will worsen as the hottest months of the year bear down.
“Oh my God, no lights and no gas, that is what this means,” Havana resident Pia Ferrer exclaimed in an upscale neighborhood of Havana.
Guess they’ll have to replace all those 1950s cars with EVs now.