Matanzas, Cuba
“There is really a willingness, a true dedication of the workers. Every time we call them, the response is total. We have a consciousness that a problem cannot wait. It cannot wait. It is a matter of security that we must work day and night without stopping until we return the plant to power.” Ruben Campos Olmos, General Director of the Antonio Guiteras Thermoelectric Power Plant, spoke about electrical workers in his plant and across Cuba, who worked night and day to restore power to Cuba after the country was plunged into darkness recently.
I had the privilege of visiting the Antonio Guiteras TPP, soon after power was restored on October 21. While the U.S. government and media like to portray the energy crisis as the fault of Cuba’s system, it was precisely Cuba’s socialism and the workers’ hard work and sacrifice that brought the island back online in record time.
What U.S. media won’t tell you is that Cuba’s energy crisis is due solely to the U.S. economic war on Cuba, in particular U.S. unilaterally-imposed measures tailored in April 2019 to block the necessary oil that powers the electrical system. 62 years of the U.S. blockade have weakened the country’s infrastructure, from electricity to water to roads to housing.
Guiteras is the largest thermoelectric plant in Cuba. Inaugurated in March, 1988, it is one of eight major plants and is located just meters from the shore of Matanzas Bay, northeastern Cuba, to maximize access to the sea waters that cool the massive operation.
Together with Leima Martínez, director of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the People’s (ICAP) North American department, we met at length with the leadership team that manages the plant. Then we walked through the massive, four-story power plant and the central operating system to meet more workers.
Even before last week’s nationwide total blackout, Cuba’s electrical workers have labored nonstop in the last months to assure electrical power to the people. These are extremely difficult times for Cubans, amidst regular partial blackouts due to Washington’s policy.
Cuba was brutally slammed in April 2019, when the Trump administration blocked regular oil shipments to Cuba from Venezuela and other countries, by prohibiting all insurance companies from insuring oil tankers that transport oil to Cuba. This outrageous, illegal and extraterritorial ban forces even non-U.S.-based insurance companies to comply or face sanctions.
Now, there are only two ways that Cuba can obtain oil from abroad. One is a small 70,000-ton ship — bought by Cuba from China — and the other is oil delivered by Mexico, via Mexican military ships. Former president López Obrador, and now Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum have extended this essential solidarity to Cuba.
It was announced on Mexican media that last Sunday the Mexican oil tanker Vilma was headed for Cuba with 400,000 barrels of light crude oil.
These alone are what has allowed Cuba to maintain its energy production. Cuba has national oil and gas production as well, but it can only meet part of the country’s needs.
Thus, regular blackouts have been scheduled in Cuba in recent months, to carefully ration the availability of electricity for all the population and avoid a total shutdown. But total shutdown is what happened on Friday, October 18, when generating supply could not meet the demand, due to the delay in oil delivery.
Disastrously, in the middle of the blackout, Hurricane Oscar made landfall in eastern Guantánamo province on Sunday, hampering evacuations and communications. Guantánamo suffered massive destruction of homes and industry. Eight people died. In response, the Cuban people and government are engaged in a major mobilization of donations and volunteer help for Guantánamo.
We spent three hours at Guiteras plant with the plant’s director and some of the highly skilled workers who explained the plant’s operation, and the challenges posed by the U.S. blockade.
Ruben Campos Olmos has been General Director of the Antonio Guiteras plant for 10 years. He told us, “Before the shutdown, we had been online for 48 days. We were really stable, with some problems but stable for 48 days.”
But the latest oil delivery was delayed by the oncoming storm, Hurricane Oscar. Lacking fuel, the Guiteras plant’s power shut down, setting off a chain reaction across Cuba.
With the total blackout, he explained, it was now up to the National Dispatch Center in Havana, where workers directed each province and power entity to slowly power up, in a coordinated manner to avoid another blackout.
From October 18-21, electrical workers across the industry took on a monumental struggle, starting up the small “island” generators that are needed to start up the thermoelectric plants. The power plants — once down — can’t start up by themselves. Then National Dispatch directs the synchronization of Cuba’s whole network.
Fuel is the key, the U.S. targets Cuba’s access
Director Campos said, “The country needs about three or four ships of imported fuel per week and the Yankees are constantly chasing that. How are we going to prevent that from happening? Banks, if we have the money, they delay the transactions. There is a general complicity. Even when we have the financing, there are delays in the arrival of the fuel. Shipping companies are sanctioned. Those measures that Trump applied, it has intensified the monitoring of all vessels and fuel.
“But as for coordination to recover, Cuba has the strength in that. There is no private generation here. There is a national electrical system, which has a single command and coordination, with the authorities, of course. This is why the recovery time is much shorter than for other countries.”
Touring the plant, we met with young workers who control the plant’s computer operations — four per shift, 12 total. The plant is almost completely automated, and monitoring the plant’s complex operation requires intense attention.
Besides the Control Room workers, there are several hundred others who carry out the maintenance, repairs in the giant four-floor complex, and general upkeep.
Monitoring the electrical system in the midst of shortages, calculating the next day’s consumer demand and the generating capacity to meet that demand, scheduling blackouts to save energy, all requires long hours of hard work and personal sacrifice across the SEN, the National Electrical System. Each day, Cuban media informs the population how much power will be available and announces which areas will experience temporary blackouts. The situation is still very tense as oil supply is at a deficit.
From the union representative to the director and everyone we heard from, the outlook was determined despite the difficulties.
Unity in the face of adversity
Yandy Rojas, General Secretary of the plant bureau of the Union of Electrical Workers, and a solderer at the plant, talked of the work hours that almost have no limit when it comes to overcoming emergencies like the blackout.
“We had five critical days to bring the plant back up. We had workers who were here two, three, four days without leaving. They left their families behind, but they did their job, and we resolved it in less than 24 hours.
“I was here 72 hours at the plant without leaving, because the people needed us and we had to be here. That is unconditional, knowing that the family was at home suffering the consequences. But the family also understands the work that we do and thanks us. That is a very important thing. We Cubans carry this in our hearts.”
He explained that the plant administration and union work together to try to provide access for the workers to food and other household needs for their families, at an affordable price, recognizing their sacrifice.
Elizabeth Farías, Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba’s plant unit, summed up this spirit: “What the enemy does not count on is precisely the unity of the Cuban people, the unity of the Cuban workers and the commitment they have to the Revolution. Because what happened here in these days, what was manifested was precisely the action of the workers.
“It was heroism on the part of our workers, it was a true epic of Cuban workers. It says that there is no blockade that can destroy the social project that we are building. Not only the worker is involved, the party is here, the young people are here who continually have the support and accompaniment of our leaders of the Party, of the government.
“There is a true unity in Cuba in each one of the moments that we are going through.”
