2024-02-18 00:06:43
Anchored in the Guanabacoa cove and protected from the curiosity of Havana residents, the exact location of the Turkish floating power plant was not known. Erol Bey, with four chimneys. Located next to an industrial area, a 450-meter esplanade separates it from the Regla generator set to which it appears to be connected.
The Erol Bey, which appeared on Wednesday as “patana de Regla” in the Electrical Union report, with 63 megawatts (MW), is the third ship of the Turkish company Karpowership currently installed in Havana, along with the most visible Suheyla Sultan, of 240 MW, and Belgin Sultan, of 15. Silos, warehouses and flour mills surround the dock where it is anchored, and which is reached through Nuestra Señora de la Caridad street, in the municipality of Regla.
According to the National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI), the plantations contributed 2,591 gigawatt-hours (GWh) in 2022, which represents 14% of the country’s total generation (18,323 GWh).
The Erol Bay It can be seen from Havana and is accessible only from the industrial area that surrounds it, something only possible for those who work in the surrounding factories, as a reporter from 14 intervene.
Neither the Karpowership records nor its project on Cuba, where it installed floating plants for the first time in 2019, allude to the ‘Erol Bey’
Satellite images, for their part, clearly show the ship, smaller than the Suheyla Sultan, located in the port of Havana, and with four chimneys that, this Thursday, were emitting a weak smoke.
Neither Karpowership’s records nor its project on Cuba, where it installed floating plants for the first time in 2019, allude to the Mr. Erol. A report from the Turkish media Maritime News Agency mentions Karpowership’s acquisition of a Norwegian oil tanker manufactured in South Korea which it called – as an “example of loyalty” – Erol Bey, in honor of the then president of the Turkish Maritime Council, businessman Erol Yücel.
However, it is not known if this ship, transformed into fireplace, It is the same one that is anchored in Havana. An argument in favor of this change is that, along with this vessel, Karpowership bought another “twin” oil tanker which it converted into a fireplace. It’s about the Esra Sultan which, in 2023, was in the Dominican Republic. For both ships, the Turkish company paid 14 million dollars.
Maritime tracking applications do not provide information on the location of the Erol Bey since 2017.
The Cuban Government has been secretive about the contracting of the Turkish floating plants. To obtain an estimated cost number, this newspaper sought information in the Dominican Republic, which hired two boats – including Esra Sultan – for which it paid 40 million dollars for a duration of 42 months. Applying the same calculation to Cuba, the cost would be 109 million for the same period, or 31 million per year.
However, if Karpowership and Havana share something, it is the lack of clarity about their transactions and it is impossible to know the balance that the Island is paying for them, and that is not only reduced to the economic but also to the environmental. Patanas, as Havana residents know well, are pollution bombs.
Immersed in an energy crisis in which the Government puts all its problems, the country suffers constant blackouts and its facilities go from breakdown to breakdown. Faced with a lack of fuel, the regime turns to its allies, who do not stop sending oil tankers to Cuban ports, often with the risk of non-payment.
An emblematic case is Mexico, whose oil company, Pemex, according to the newspaper The country, accumulates a debt of 106,000 million dollars, says the credit rating agency Moody’s.
“Cuba and Mexico have not made public the commercial or financing agreement for the more than 5.5 million barrels of oil sent by Pemex to Cuba during 2023, with an estimated market value of 390 million dollars,” he explains to this newspaper the expert from the University of Texas Jorge Piñón. The quantities sent in “January and February of this year indicate that the supply of Mexican oil to Cuba will not only continue, but could even increase,” he believes.
To prove it, the expert assures, there are the trips from Mexico to Cuba of the ships Vilma, Ocean Mariner y Share –which have transported 1.1 million barrels in January and February– and Esperanza, which adds to the route. He Esperanza, one of the ships that shuttled between Venezuela and the Island, abandons its old route in favor of Mexico. “Is this a sign of fewer supplies from Venezuela or a simple rotation of tankers?” asks Piñón.
Another important actor in Cuba’s oil energy destiny is Russia, whose Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, will visit Cuba soon. The diplomat will have numerous topics of conversation with Havana. Among them, the estimated debt of 566 million dollars for shipments of nearly 7 million barrels of oil during 2022, and 1.6 million in 2023.
From that visit, Piñón concludes, many decisions will come out that will affect the geopolitical balance of the region, particularly in Venezuela and Mexico, with tense elections ahead in 2024, and in Cuba, which depends on its allies to survive.
________________________
Collaborate with our work:
The team of 14 intervene is committed to doing serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long path. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of our journal. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.