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A new report by Emilio Morales reveals how the Cuban military conglomerate uses micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) to participate in U.S. fuel imports, while Washington rises to the challenge and gains increasing control over the island’s energy supply.
The battle for control over the fuel reaching Cuba has entered a new phase. After losing its Venezuelan oil supply and a significant portion of the revenue it derived from international resale, GAESA now faces a U.S. strategy that threatens to dismantle one of its most lucrative businesses and limit the energy resources available to sustain the Cuban regime’s repressive apparatus.
This is one of the main conclusions of the new report “Control of Fuel: A New Tool for Exerting Pressure on the Cuban Mafia State,” prepared by Emilio Morales, vice president of Cuba Siglo 21 and president of Havana Consulting Group. The investigation analyzes the financial, business, and logistical network that controls fuel imports from the United States and questions whether these operations constitute a business truly independent of the Cuban private sector.
The capture of Nicolás Maduro on January 3, 2026, meant that Havana lost its main supplier of subsidized oil. According to estimates included in the dossier, GAESA resold between 40% and 50% of the Venezuelan crude oil it received on Asian markets, an operation that is estimated to have generated approximately $30 billion between 2010 and 2025.
As the energy crisis worsened, Washington opened a channel to export fuel to eligible Cuban private entities and individual consumers under the “Support for the Cuban People” exception. The purpose was to enable the supply of fuel to independent operations without benefiting sanctioned military and state entities.
However, Morales’s investigation maintains that GAESA has found ways to access this new market by using micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) as intermediaries, while retaining control over the infrastructure and financial channels that enable the sale of fuel.
The Private Business That Ends Up in GAESA’s Accounts
The dossier identifies a fundamental contradiction: although MSMEs appear as importers or distributors, the gas stations continue to belong to CIMEX ( ; payment transactions are carried out using Clásica cards administered by FINCIMEX; and the revenues end up deposited in Banco Financiero Internacional (BFI)—entities linked to the military conglomerate.
In other words, MSMEs may participate in the commercial operation, but GAESA retains control of the strategic assets and the financial circuit through which the dollars flow.
Added to this is an economic barrier that is practically insurmountable for small independent business owners. According to calculations presented by Morales, starting operations with ten fuel isotanks may require an initial investment of between $500,000 and $1.4 million, without access to financing and with payments made in cash.
The scale of the imports raises further questions. Between January and August 2026, U.S. exports of fuel and petroleum products to Cuba totaled approximately $232 million, with a monthly record of $74.9 million in August.
For Morales, these volumes can hardly be explained by the operations of small, independent companies without the backing of larger-scale financial and logistical structures.
Washington Identifies the Routes and Closes Loopholes
At the same time, the Trump administration has intensified sanctions against state-owned companies linked to the fuel trade, including CUPET, ENETEC, and COREYDAN.
U.S. authorities also reported the interception of 90 shipments destined for ENETEC, containing approximately 600,000 gallons of fuel, valued at $2.8 million.
These operations show that Washington is not limited to controlling the energy supply but seeks to identify the business networks used to evade sanctions and to monitor the final destinations of shipments.
The dossier also warns of the risk that fuel authorized for the private sector could end up supplying military institutions and repressive agencies. Journalistic investigations cited in the document have identified supplies to vehicles linked to the regime’s security apparatus.
A New Strategic Vulnerability for the Regime
The investigation concludes that the most significant change lies not only in the replacement of Venezuelan oil with U.S. fuel, but also in the transformation of energy dependency relationships.
For years, GAESA took advantage of Venezuelan supplies to generate extraordinary revenue through international operations. Now it must navigate a market where the United States has the capacity to monitor exports, identify intermediaries, and sanction irregular operations.
Washington faces, however, a delicate balancing act: preventing the fuel from strengthening the repressive apparatus without causing an even greater collapse of the essential services on which the Cuban population depends.
The unfolding of this new scenario could also help identify the micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) used as front companies by the military conglomerate and expose the mechanisms through which GAESA attempts to preserve its sources of financing.
The strategic conclusion of the dossier is that GAESA no longer controls the rules of the energy game as it once did. Washington has begun to challenge GAESA not only for control over the fuel supply but also for the ability to decide who receives it, who markets it, and who benefits from its revenues.
The United States faces, however, a challenge: restricting supplies to the repressive apparatus without further exacerbating the humanitarian crisis affecting the population. For this reason, authorizing supplies to private companies, humanitarian organizations, and other eligible recipients remains an important component of its policy. This is also why—not out of ignorance—they initially showed great flexibility in accepting “private” MSMEs as independent entities, even though they know these entities operate in collusion with GAESA.
In a regime whose survival depends as much on control of foreign currency as on energy resources, this loss of autonomy poses a threat that goes far beyond the oil business.
