Mexico's Pemex increased crude shipments to Cuba in 2024, filing shows

May 6 (Reuters) - Mexican state oil company Pemex increased shipments of crude to Cuba by almost 20% last year as the island's energy crisis worsened, according to a company filing.

Pemex affiliate Gasolinas de Bienestar exported 20,100 barrels per day of crude and 2,700 bpd of oil products in 2024, for a sum equivalent to $600 million, according to Pemex's annual report to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, published by the company on its website this week.

In 2023, Pemex sent the Caribbean island 16,800 bpd of crude and 3,300 bpd of oil products for a value of $400 million. Shipments that year started in July.

Cuba has been struggling with long and frequent power outages, which it blames on a Cold War-era U.S. trade embargo and fresh restrictions from U.S. President Donald Trump. In March, an outage in the capital , Havana, and neighboring provinces left over 10 million people without power for nearly two days.

Pemex is among the world's most indebted oil companies and its production of crude oil and condensate dropped by 11% in the last year.

"These sales represented 2.8% of our total crude oil exports and 0.7% of our total sales of oil product, respectively," Pemex said in the filing.

In the past, several sources told Reuters that shipments to Cuba were made as donations. Pemex marked them as sales in the latest filing, without further details.

The oil producer did not immediately respond to requests for comment about whether its exports had continued during 2025 or about volumes.