EXIMBANK CANCEL CREDIT FOR PEMEX-For donating oil to Cuba

HAVANA, Oct. 7th. Eximbank, an official credit agency that promotes exports and investment of the American private sector abroad, canceled a credit of about $800 million dollars to Pemex for exporting free oil to Cuba. The reason for this sanction is that Cuba is subject to a trade embargo by the United States.

The recent donations in June and July of more than one million barrels of crude oil from Pemex to the island were hidden by the Mexican government to, presumably, avoid being sanctioned.

To prevent a financial and diplomatic scandal, it had been agreed not to make public the cancellation of the Eximbank credit, at the request of the Mexican oil company.

See also: Mexico’s Pemex offers support to Cuba to rebuild burned oil facility

It is clarified, in this sense, that the sanction does not extend to the entire Mexican government, which is why Eximbank will continue to support US investors in their operations in Mexico, except for the oil sector.

Of course, this is a hard blow for the oil company, since right now the current financial situation of Pemex is not the best, which is already officially on the Eximbank “blacklist”, with other countries that make up the so-called Limitation Program. Country (Country Limitation Schedule, or CLS).

It thus joins the sanctioned list, where nations such as Bolivia, Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela appear.

Mexico shipped 350,000 barrels of Petróleos Mexicanos crude oil to Cuba without cargo in June and another 700,000 barrels the following month, and this would mark its first exports to the island since 2019, according to the port authority and ship movements tracked by Bloomberg.