The possible end of cheap oil from Venezuela stole attention at last month's Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy conference in Miami.
Faced with mounting energy problems, Cuban officials announced strict energy-saving measures at state enterprises, hoping to avoid blackouts this summer. Officials have said Cuba will have to cut fuel consumption by 28 percent in the the second half of the year.
Cuba produces about 50,000 barrels of crude oil a day and has relies on Venezuela for the other 80,000 to 90,000 barrels a day it needs. But with Venezuela on the ropes economically, continued supplies are uncertain, said Jorge Pinon, an analyst at the University of Texas' Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy.
Over the past six months, he said, Venezuelan oil production has come dangerously close to dropping below 2 million barrels a day. "In our business that's catastrophic," Pinon said. But June and July deliveries were sufficient, the said.
Some analysts have looked only at oil arriving in Cuba directly from Venezuela, which has declined, and predicted a more dire outlook for the island, but Pinon said Cuba also receives oil from offshore Venezuelan facilities.
Cuba also has been stockpiling oil, and he estimates there is a 60-day supply on the island. The question is what happens with Venezuelan deliveries in August and September, Pinon said.
"The hurricane is coming in Venezuela and it's a Category 5 hurricane," he said. "The question is: Will it hit Cuba?"
Already hours have been cut for some state workers, fleets at nonessential enterprises have been parked and some neighborhoods have reported blackouts, drawing comparisons to Cuba's "special period" in the 1990s. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of its generous subsidies, there were severe shortages in such things as fuel and fool.
"There is speculation and rumors of an imminent collapse of our economy and a return to the acute phase of the special period," President Raul Castro said in a recent speech to Cuba's National Assembly. While he acknowledged that "there may be ill effects," he said Cuba was "in better condition than we were then to face them."
Pinon said the surge in Cuban tourism and the growth of private enterprise is putting more pressure on Cuba's energy sector. About 68 percent of oil consumption in Cuba is fuel oil for its inefficient electrical power sector. The government has said it will protect the tourism sector and private businesses from cutbacks.
If Venezuelan oil supplies dry up, Pinon said, it's unlikely Cuba would be able to find another benefactor like Venezuela, forcing it to go to the world market.
In recent years, Cuba has received more oil from Venezuela than it needs to meet its needs and has been selling the excess on the world market as refined petroleum products. But Pinon suggested it would be cheaper and more efficient for Cuba to close its refineries and buy gasoline and jet fuel, than to buy crude oil and refine it.
In general, economists at the conference in Miami said the economic outlook for Cuba this year _ and next _ is not good.
Omar Everleny Perez, a Cuban economist who was among about a half-dozen academics, private entrepreneurs and economists from Cuba at the conference, said it has been projected that the Cuban economy will grow by 1 percent in 2016.
"I'm not sure it will reach that this year," he said.
Final figures haven't been announced yet, but Perez said Cuba would show a deficit in goods and services trade for 2015.
Among other problems Cuba is facing are servicing its debt, how to unify its unwieldy dual currency system, decrepit infrastructure and sluggish foreign investment.
"The Cuban government now finds itself again in need of foreign financing and they're not going to get it," said Joaquin Pujol, who is retired from the International Monetary Fund. "In fact, it has turned to Miami."
In recent years, relatives and friends have become an important source of funding for small startup businesses in Cuba.
